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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

GIFT  OF 

Mrs.  George  Papashvily 


-1 


BELINDA 


A    NO  VEL. 


BY 

RHODA  BROUGHTON, 

AUTHOR  OF 

;<KED   AS   A  ROSE   IS   SHE,"    "GOOD-BYE,    SWEETHEART,"    "  COMETH   UP 
AS  A  FLOWER,"    ETC. 


NEW  YORK: 
D.  APPLETON   AND    COMPANY, 

1,  8,  AND  5  BOND  STREET. 

1883. 


GIFT 


. 

BELINDA. 


PERIOD    I. 

"  Mignonne,  allons  voir  si  la  rose 
Qui  ce  matin  avait  disclose 
Sa  robe  de  pourpre  au  soleil 
A  point  perdu  ceste  vespree, 
Les  plis  de  sa  robe  pourpr6e 
Et  son  teint  au  vostre  pareil. 
Las  !  voyez  comme  en  peu  d'espace, 
Mignonne,  elle  u  dessus  la  place  ! 
Las  !  Las !  ses  beautez  Iaiss6  cheoir ! 
0  vrayment  marastre  Nature 
Puis  qu'une  telle  fleur  ne  dure 
Que  du  matin  jusques  au  soir  ! 
Done  si  vous  me  croyez,  Mignonne, 
Tandis  que  vostre  age  fleuronne 
En  sa  plus  verte  nouveaute, 
Cueillez,  cueillez  vostre  jeunesse, 
Comme  a  ceste  fleur,  la  vielliesse 
Fera  ternir  vostre  beaute." 


CHAPTER  I. 

"  Along  the  crisped  shades  and  bowers 
Revels  the  spruce  and  jocund  Spring." 

less  lustily  than  elsewhere  is  the  spruce  and 
jocund  Spring  reveling  in  the  Grosse  Garten  at  Dresden 
on  this  May  Day.  And  though  there  is  still  in  her  very 
frolic  a  disposition  to  pinch  sharply,  a  certain  tartness  in 

039 


BELINDA. 


her  green  smile,  yet  many  glad  subjects  have  come  forth 
to  do  homage  to  her  new  Queendom.  Yes,  many  ;  for 
to-day  the  Dresdeners — as  I  am  told  is  their  custom  on 
each  fresh  May  Day — have  issued  out  on  foot  and  in  car- 
riage to  welcome  the  year's  new  sovereign.  They  are 
holding  a  sort  of  flower-feast ;  everybody  is  throwing 
bouquets  to  everybody  else.  Above  their  heads  the  trees 
are  breaking  into  little  leaf  ;  upon  the  side-paths  throng 
the  foot-passengers  ;  along  the  drives  the  carriages  gayly 
roll.  Here  is  a  very  smart  turn-out.  Surely  this  must 
be  the  King  and  the  Queen  ?  Not  at  all  1  It  is  only 

Graf  von  S ,  reclining  with  a  self-satisfied  air  alone 

in  a  barouche,  richly  filled  with  choice  nosegays,  and 
drawn  by  four  chestnut  horses,  with  a  crimson  velvet 
postilion  jigging  up  and  down  in  front,  and  a  crimson 
velvet  outrider  trotting  bravely  behind.  An  Englishman 
would  feel  a  fool  in  such  a  position,  but  far  indeed  from 
a  like  frame  of  mind  is  that  of  this  splendid  and  happy 
German. 

Well,  here  come  the  King  and  Queen  really  now, 
with  their  mouse-colored  liveries ;  come,  bowing  and 
smiling  with  as  much  affability  as  if  they  were  real  big 
royalties  ;  no  one  troubling  himself  to  get  out  of  their 
way  ;  not  a  policeman  to  be  seen  ;  no  open  space  impera- 
tively cleared,  as  when  the  Princess  of  Wales  comes 
trotting  serenely  down  the  drive.  Here  are  soldiers  in 
plenty  ;  but  soldiers  thinking  for  the  most  part  neither  \ 
of  war  nor  beer  ;  soldiers  with  their  martial  hands  full 
of  innocent  daffodillies  and  fresh  sweet  Nancies.  Garde- 
reiters  in  their  light-blue  uniforms  and  flat  blue  caps, 
pricking  hither  and  thither  on  their  sleek  horses,  carrying 
bouquets  of  roses,  azaleas,  deutzias,  hyacinths,  and  seek- 
ing here  and  there  with  grave  gray  eyes  for  the  happy 
fair  ones  for  whom  they  are  destined. 

Two  bands  are  clashing  merrily  out ;  a  great  booming 


BELINDA. 


thump  on  the  big  drum  makes  the  horses  start  and  fidget. 
Now,  for  a  change,  comes  a  real  English  turn-out.  One 
need  not  look  twice  to  decide  its  nationality.  The  square- 
sitting,  bolt-upright  servants  in  their  quiet  liveries  ;  the 
plain  but  shining  harness  ;  the  great  glossy-coated  bays 
stepping  together  like  one  horse — who  can  doubt  con- 
cerning them?  Now  more  English  in  hired  carriages  ; 
but  do  not  judge  us  by  these,  O  kind  Saxons  ;  these  are 
not  our  best !  And  yet  it  is  in  one  of  these  very  hired 
carriages  that  are  sitting  a  pair  of  young  women,  of  whom 
their  England  has  no  need  to  be  ashamed,  and  who  are 
not  at  all  ashamed  of  themselves.  Not  that  the  present 
is  their  happiest  moment,  for  the  expression  of  one  face 
is  cross,  and  of  the  other  anxious. 

"  Shall  we  go  home,  Belinda  ? "  asks  the  cross  one, 
morosely. 

"  Why,  we  have  only  just  come  ! "  objects  Belinda. 

A  Russian  carriage  passes  ;  a  coachman  with  a  hat 
like  a  beef-eater  and  a  long  cloth  frock  pulled  in  with 
gathers  at  the  waist.  Then  more  Germans,  with  bunches 
of  narcissus  at  their  horses'  ears,  and  in  their  servants' 
breasts.  Now  a  Gardereiter  perched  on  the  box  of  a 
coach,  driving  six-in-hand,  and  with  a  confiding  lady  in  a 
pink  bonnet  beside  him,  tranquilly  enjoying  her  position, 
nor  anywise  disturbed  by  the  hopeless  muddle  into  which 
her  hero  has  got  his  innumerable  reins.  Another  blue 
Gardereiter  flings  her  a  bouquet ;  but  it  is  ill-aimed,  falls 
upon  the  road,  and  the  wheels  pass  over  it.  This  sight  is 
too  much  for  the  fortitude  of  Belinda's  sister. 

"I  must  take  some  desperate  step  to  attract  atten- 
tion," she  says,  crossly,  yet  with  a  vein  of  humor  streak- 
ing her  ill-temper  ;  "  what  do  you  recommend  ?  Shall  I 
be  frightened  at  the  big  drum,  and  give  a  loud  shriek,  or 
will  you  ?  " 

"  Certainly  not  I ! " 


6  BELINDA. 


"  I  can  Dot  think  what  has  happened  to  them  !  They 
must  be  wrong  in  their  heads  !  Are  you  aware  that  not 
one  of  them  has  thrown  us  a  single  bouquet  ?  " 

"  Why  should  they  ?  "  answers  Belinda  ;  "  we  know 
none  of  them." 

"  Even  though  they  do  not  know  us,  they  might  toss 
us  a  handful  of  flowers,"  says  Sarah,  grurnblingly ;  "  I 
am  sure  we  look  wistful  enough,  and  that  requires  no 
great  amount  of  acquaintance  ! " 

"  I  should  think  it  extremely  impertinent  if  they  did"!  " 
replies  Belinda,  loftily. 

The  other  pouts. 

"  For  my  part,  then,  I  wish  that  they  would  begin  to 
be  impertinent  at  once  !  " 

But  for  such  insolence  the  Saxon  army  appears  to  have 
no  sort  of  bent.  In  silence  the  neglected  girls  drive  on. 
And  the  sun  shines,  and  the  east  wind  blows,  and  the  big 
drum  booms,  and  the  great  brass  instruments  blare,  and 
still  they  trot  round  the  bit  of  dull  water,  up  the  straight 
drives,  past  the  Museum  of  Antiquities.  A  rain  of  spring 
nosegays  falls  around  them,  but  not  one  is  aimed  at  their 
humble  landau  ;  not  one  drops,  even  by  accident,  into 
their  empty  laps. 

Here  come  the  King  and  Queen  again  ;  the  mouse-col- 
ored and  silver  outriders  ;  the  suave  and  middle-aged 
pair  of  little  royalties.  The  gloom  on  Sarah's  face 
deepens,  and  even  in  Belinda's  eyes  the  anxious,  seeking 
look  has  grown  intensified.  If  they  know  no  one  in  this 
gay  foreign  throng,  whom  is  she  seeking  ? 

"After  all,"  she  presently  says,  "you  knew,  Sarah 
when  you  were  so  anxious  to  come,  that  we  should  meet 
no  acquaintance  here  except  Professor  Forth,  and — " 

"  Well,  and  why  is  not  he  here,  pray  ? "  cries  Sa- 
rah, with  a  burst  of  genuine  ill-humor  that  seems  sen- 
sibly to  ease  her.  "Did  not  I  order  him  to  be  punc- 


BELINDA. 


tual  to  the  moment?  Even  he  would  be  better  than 
nothing  ! " 

Belinda  smiles  ironically. 

"  That  is  an  enthusiastic  form  of  encomium  upon  the 
man  that  you  are  going  to  marry  ! " 

But  Sarah  does  not  heed.  Her  eyes  are  directed  to 
the  sidewalk,  where  the  brisk  foot-passengers  pass  and 
repass. 

"  There  he  is  !  "  she  cries  in  a  disgusted  voice  ;  "  cer- 
tainly there  is  no  mistaking  him  !  Did  you  ever  see  such 
a  gait  in  your  life  ?  Look  at  him  slouching  along  on  his 
great  flat  feet !  " 

Belinda  looks  as  directed  ;  and  sure  enough,  amid  the 
strapping  soldiers  erect  and  tall  detects  without  difficulty 
a  slovenly  middle-aged  figure,  clerical,  if  you  judge  by 
its  coat ;  scholarly,  if  you  decide  by  its  spectacles.  With 
his  hands  behind  him,  and  his  hat  set  somewhat  on  the 
back  of  his  head,  he  is  mooning  absently  along. 

"  Is  it  possible  ?  "  cries  Sarah,  half -rising  from  her 
seat,  and  in  a  tone  that  is  almost  awful  from  its  ire. 
"  Yes  ;  it  is  monstrous ;  it  is  unbelievable  !  but  it  is 
nevertheless  true  that  he  has  not  brought  me  a  bouquet 
after  all  ! " 

"  Yes,  he  has,"  replies  Belinda,  quietly,  "  only  it  is  so 
small  that  it  requires  a  keen  sight  to  perceive  it." 

As  they  speak,  the  object  of  their  observation  becomes 
aware  of  their  vicinity,  and,  turning  his  moony  scholar's 
gaze  toward  them,  awkwardly  aims  at  them  a  tiny  bunch 
of  not  particularly  fresh  violets.  It  falls  into  his  be- 
trothed's  lap,  but  not  long  does  it  remain  there.  With 
an  angry  gesture,  and  before  Belinda  can  stop  her,  she 
has  tossed  it  out  into  the  road  ;  and  the  Gardereiter,  with 
his  six  black  horses,  and  his  confiding  companion,  who 
are  just  in  the  act  of  again  passing,  drive  over  it,  and 
grind  it  into  the  dust.  Thanks,  however,  to  his  near-sight, 


8  BELINDA. 


the  donor  is  saved  from  witnessing  this  humbling  spec- 
tacle. 

"I  am  afraid  that  my  aim  was  not  good,"  he  says  inno- 
cently, as  the  carriage  draws  up  at  the  sidewalk,  explor- 
ing, as  he  speaks,  the  interior  through  his  spectacles  in 
search  of  his  missing  posy.  "  I  fear  that  the  nosegay  I 
directed  toward  you  must  have  fallen  short,  and  never 
reached  you." 

"  Oh,  yes  it  did,"  replies  Sarah,  with  a  sort  of  fero- 
cious playfulness  ;  "but  as  it  was  too  large  for  me  to 
carry,  I  put  it  outside." 

"  How  late  you  are  !  "  cries  Belinda,  hastily  trying,  by 
a  rapid  change  of  subject  and  a  sweet,  good-natured  smile, 
to  erase  the  traces  of  this  suave  speech.  "  After  playing 
us  so  false,  you  can  not  expect  to  find  us  in  a  very  good 
humor." 

"  I  was  delayed  by  an  accident,"  replies  the  lover,  ir- 
ritably. "I  found  the  east  wind  so  very  much  keener 
than  I  was  aware  of  " — shivering  a  little,  and  buttoning 
his  coat  more  tightly  over  his  narrow  chest — "  that  as  I 
am  extremely  susceptible  to  cold,  I  was  compelled  to  re- 
turn to  my  lodgings  for  a  second  overcoat.  Sarah  knows  " 
— with  a  rather  resentful  glance  at  his  fiancee — "  that  I 
am  extremely  susceptible  to  cold." 

But  Sarah  heeds  him  no  more  than  she  does  the  east 
wind  of  which  he  complains. 

"  Ah  !  Bravo  ! "  she  is  crying,  joyfully,  as  another 
bouquet — a  real  one  this  time — large  as  a  Cheshire  cheese, 
fragrant  as  a  hot-house,  choice  and  costly  as  should  be 
young  Love's  tribute,  comes  flying  into  the  carriage. 

She  has  stretched  out  both  hands  to  grasp  it ;  no 
doubt  as  to  its  destination  troubling  her  triumph,  al- 
though to  a  looker-on  it  would  have  seemed  as  if  it  were 
aimed  more  at  the  other  sister,  at  Belinda,  who  has  also 
half-stretched  out  her  hands,  but  has  quickly  withdrawn 


BELINDA. 


them,  and  turned  with  patient  attention,  though  with 
something  of  a  blank  look  on  her  face,  to  the  Professor's 
fretful  sarcasms  on  the  adsurdity  of  an  al  fresco  enter- 
tainment in  such  weather.  But  though  he  misses  noth- 
ing in  her  civil  listening,  though  her  head  is  turned  to- 
ward him  and  quite  averted  from  her  sister,  yet  her  ears 
miss  no  one  syllable  of  that  sister's  exuberant  thanks. 

"  Come  near,  that  I  may  bless  you ! "  she  hears  her 
cry  coquettishly.  "  You  see  I  have  not  a  hand  to  give 
you  ;  but  you  must  blame  yourself  for  that.  "What  a 
giant  it  is  !  How  fresh  !  How  good  !  " —  evidently 
smelling  it.  "  It  has  quite  put  me  into  good-humor  again 
with  this  odious  entertainment.  I  assure  you  I  never  was 
so  flouted  in  my  life  !  What  boors  they  are  !  How  dif- 
ferent it  would  have  been  if  they  had  been  Frenchmen  !  " 
etc.,  etc. 

Perhaps  it  is  that  her  volubility  leaves  no  space  for 
answers  from  the  person  she  addresses.  Certain  it  is 
that  he  is  strangely  silent.  Is  it  not  odd  to  accept  grati- 
tude so  bounteous  with  so  entire  a  dumbness  ?  In  ponder- 
ing on  this  problem,  Belinda  presently  loses  the  thread  of 
the  Professor's  plaints  ;  awakes  from  her  musing  to  find 
him  first  gazing  at  her  with  surprised  offense,  then  gone  ; 
then  succeeded  in  his  station  at  the  carriage-door  by  some 
one  ;  some  one  else  who  has  no  spectacles,  who  does  not 
stoop  nor  cower  before  the  east  wind  ;  some  one  young, 
in  short — word  of  splendid  compass  !  He  is  young  :  not 
with  the  conventional  youth  loosely  assigned  by  society 
to  any  unmarried  male  under  eighty,  but  really  young  ; 
some  one  who  three-and-twenty  years  ago  did  not  exist. 

Who  that  was  not  young  and  callow  would  be  staring 
at  her  with  all  his  eyes,  and  saying  aggrievedly  under  his 
breath  : 

"  Why  did  you  not  catch  it  ?  You  knew  I  meant  it 
for  you ! " 


10  BELINDA. 


She  looks  back  at  him  :  a  happy,  red  smile  warming 
the  face  that  men  have  often  blamed  as  chill  and  high. 

"  I  did  my  best  !  " 

"  What  are  you  two  gabbling  about  ? "  cries  Sarah, 
restlessly,  cutting  ruthlessly  short  a  sentence  of  her  be- 
trothed's.  "  Are  you  saying  anything  about  me  ?  Ah  ! 
I  see  you  both  look  guilty  ! " 

Neither  undeceives  her. 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  later  the  two  girls  are  bowling 
homeward  to  their  grandmamma  and  their  apartment  in 
the  Ltittichau  Strasse,  leaving  behind  them  the  King,  the 

Queen,  the  Graf  von  S in  his  barouche,  and  the  brave 

soldiers,  both  blue  and  green.  Belinda  has  bent  her 
delicate  head,  and  is  laying  her  cheek  most  tenderly 
against  the  blossoms  in  her  sister's  lap. 

"Let  me  beg  of  you  not  to  mumble  them,"  cries 
Sarah,  politely,  interposing  a  prohibitory  hand.  "You 
always  seem  to  have  an  idea  that  flowers  ought  to  be 
eaten."  Then  seeing  a  quite  unaccountable  flash  of  in- 
dignation in  her  sister's  eyes,  adds  generously,  "If  they 
were  not  all  wired,  as  I  see  they  are,  I  would  spare  you 
an  orchid  or  two." 

"  Would  you  indeed ! "  replies  Belinda,  ironically. 
But,  further  than  this,  her  magnanimous  silence  does  not 
give  way. 


CHAPTER  II. 

A  NIGHT  has  passed  since  the  Professor's  damaged 
violets  bit  the  dust.  It  is  now  morning,  and  at  the  win- 
dow of  her  bedroom  in  the  Liittichau  Strasse,  with  the 
sash  flung  high  (to  the  deep  astonishment  of  the  German 
Dienst-madchen,  to  whom  the  smell  of  an  unaired  room, 
further  flavored  with  departed  sausages  and  old  beer,  is 


BELINDA.  11 


as  dear  as  to  the  rest  of  her  nation),  Belinda  sits,  the 
sun  warming  her  hair,  and  the  tart  air  freshening  her 
face.  She  is  looking  fixedly  out  on  the  pear-tree  in  the 
garden-scrap  below,  the  pear-tree  that  a  week  ago  was 
pinchedly  struggling  into  flower,  that  has  been  daily 
whitening  ever  since,  and  now  seems  to  stagger  under  its 
burden  of  blossom-snow.  Yet  I  doubt  whether  she  sees  it. 

"  Is  it  possible  ?  "  she  is  saying  to  herself,  almost  with 
awe — the  awe  that  a  great  joy  gives — "is  it  possible?" 

A  slight  noise  makes  her  turn  her  head  and  see  the 
tall  white  door  open  to  admit  her  sister. 

"  Are  you  alone  ?  "  says  the  latter,  cautiously  peeping. 

"Of  course  I  am  alone,"  replies  Belinda,  crossly. 
"  Am  I  in  the  habit  of  receiving  in  my  bedroom  ?  " 

This  not  particularly  gracious  answer  is,  however, 
quite  enough  for  Sarah,  who  forthwith  enters,  and  steps 
friskily  across  the  sunshiny  parquet,  looking  as  clean  as  a 
cherry,  as  pink  and  white  as  a  May -bush. 

"  The  moment  is  apparently  not  a  propitious  one," 
she  says,  laughing,  and  drawing  a  chair  close  up  to  her 
sister's  knees  ;  "  but,  as  my  need  is  sore,  I  am  afraid  I 
can  not  afford  to  wait  for  a  better.  I  have  come,  my 
Belinda,  to  ask  a  favor  of  you." 

"Then  you  may  go  away  again  at  once,"  replies  Be- 
linda with  surly  decision,  "  for  I  tell  you,  once  for  all,  I 
will  not  grant  it !  " 

"  What !  refuse  even  before  you  hear  what  it  is  ? " 
cries  the  other,  lifting  those  brows  which  nature,  slightly 
abetted,  perhaps,  by  a  pair  of  tweezers,  has  drawn  in  the 
thinnest  straight  line  across  her  wrinkleless  forehead. 

"  Do  you  think  I  do  not  recognize  that  well-known 
formula?"  asks  Belinda,  severely.  "I  am  sure  that  I 
have  heard  it  often  enough.  It  means  that  you  expect 
me  to  tell  Professor  Forth  that  you  have  every  intention 
of  jilting  him  !  " 


12  BELINDA. 


"  You  word  it  coarsely,"  replies  Sarah,  composedly  ; 
"  but  I  have  heard  worse  guesses." 

"  Then  I  absolutely  and  flatly  refuse  the  office  !  "  re- 
joins Belinda,  firmly.  "  WHY  you  engaged  yourself  to 
him  in  the  first  instance — " 

"  WHY  indeed  ? "  interrupts  the  other,  casting  up 
both  eyes  and  hands  to  heaven.  "  You  may  well  ask  ! " 

"  And  yet,"  pursues  Belinda,  regarding  her  sister  with 
an  air  of  stern  wonder,  "  when  you  wrote  to  announce 
your  engagement  to  me,  you  said  that  you  did  not  know 
what  you  had  done  to  deserve  such  happiness  !  " 

"  I  did  not — I  did  not !  "  cries  Sarah,  reddening  for 
once  with  genuine  shame,  and  putting  her  fingers  before 
her  face.  "  Do  not  say  it ;  it  is  not  true !  It  was  not 
about  him  ;  it  was  one  of  the  others  ! " 

"  One  of  the  others!"  echoes  Belinda,  scornfully  curl- 
ing up  her  fine  nose.  "  How  pleasant  and  dignified  to  be 
bandied  about  !  ONE  OF  THE  OTHERS  !  " 

"  It  may  not  be  dignified,"  replies  Sarah,  impudently, 
though  under  the  lash  of  her  sister's  words  even  her 
throat  has  crimsoned,  "  but  it  is  not  so  very  unpleasant !  " 

"You  know,"  continues  Belinda,  sternly,  "that  I  took 
a  solemn  oath  to  wash  my  hands  of  your  affairs,  last 
time,  when  I  had  that  painful  scene  with  poor  young 
Manners,  and  he  walked  round  the  room  on  his  knees 
after  me,  clutching  my  skirts  and  sobbing ! " 

"  He  always  sobbed  !  "  interjects  Sarah,  hard-heartedly. 
"  I  have  seen  him  cry  like  a  pump  !  " 

"  I  have  already  told  six  men  that  you  had  only  been 
making  fools  of  them,"  continues  the  elder  sister,  con- 
temptuously passing  by  her  junior's  lame  attempt  at  pal- 
liation. 

"  Six  !    Come  now,  gently." 

"  I  repeat,  six !  In  fact,  I  think  I  am  rather  under- 
stating it ;  and  I  witt  not  tell  a  seventh  ! " 


BELINDA.  13 


"  A  seventh  !  !  !  " 

"  If  you  imply  that  I  am  exaggerating,  I  am  quite 
willing  to  count.  First " — checking  off  on  her  long  white 
fingers  beginning  with  the  thumb — "first,  young  Man- 
ners ! " 

"  We  have  had  him  once  already  !  " 

"  Second  " — traveling  on  to  the  forefinger — "  Colonel 
Greene.  Poor  fellow  !  he  sobbed  too  !  " 

"  More  shame  for  him  !  " — brazenly. 

"  Third,  the  young  clergyman  whom  you  picked  up 
at  the  seaside,  and  whose  name  I  never  can  remember." 

"  No  more  can  I ! "  cries  Sarah,  with  animation. 
"  How  strange  !  Pooh  !  what  was  it  again  ?  Did  it  be- 
gin with  a  B  ?  " 

"  Fourth,"  continues  Belinda,  relentlessly,  arriving  at 
her  third  finger — "  fourth,  old  Lord  Blucher,  who  was  so 
deaf  that  I  could  not  get  him  to  understand  what  I 
meant." 

But  Sarah's  light  mind  is  still  on  the  track  of  her  lov- 
er's lost  initial. 

"I  am  almost  sure  that  it  began  with  an  L!"  she 
says,  thoughtfully. 

"Fifth"— extending  her  little  finger-— "Mr.  Braba- 
zon." 

"  You  counted  him  before  !  " 

"I  did  not!" 

"I  think  you  did." 

"  I  am  sure  I  did  not ;  but,  to  make  certain,  we  will 
begin  all  over  again.  First " — returning  to  her  thumb — 
"  poor  young  Manners — " 

"  Stop  ! "  cries  Sarah,  loudly,  putting  her  fingers  in 
her  ears,  and  abandoning  the  search  for  the  young  clergy- 
man's name.  "  I  will  grant  that  there  were  six,  sixteen, 
sixty — anything  to  put  an  end  to  that  intolerable  arith- 
metic of  yours ! " 


14  BELINDA. 


Belinda  is  preparing  to  begin  on  her  other  hand,  but 
at  this  concession  she  lets  them  both  drop  in  her  lap,  and 
ceases  counting.  There  is  a  silence.  Sarah's  roving  eyes 
are  despondently  fastened  on  the  white  earthenware 
stove,  and  Belinda's  large  grave  gaze  is  straying  through 
the  window,  taking  in  at  once  the  poetry  of  the  blooming 
pear-tree  and  the  prose  of  the  Bohemian  railway,  and  the 
ugly  straight  stuccoed  houses  beyond  it. 

What  could  have  been  your  inducement  in  this  case/' 
she  says  presently,  turning  with  a  judicial  air  to  the  of- 
fender, "  I  am  quite  at  a  loss  to  conjecture  ;  it  certainly 
could  have  been  neither  pleasure  nor  profit !  " 

"  It  certainly  could  not,"  answers  Sarah,  sighing  pro- 
foundly, and  wagging  her  head  from  side  to  side  ;  "  any 
one  who  saw  him  would  exonerate  me  from  the  suspi- 
cion of  either  motive  ! " 

"  Such  a  conquest  could  not  have  even  gratified  your 
vanity  !  "  pursues  Belinda  relentlessly. 

"  Yes,  but  it  did  ! "  replies  Sarah,  abandoning  her  dis- 
pirited pose  and  speaking  with  an  animation  which  shows 
that  she  does  not  altogether  relish  this  wholesale  depre- 
ciation of  her  latest  victim  ;  "  you  may  not  think  much 
of  him,  but  I  can  assure  you  that  he  is  considered  a  great 
luminary  at  Oxbridge.  At  the  house  where  I  met  him 
they  could  not  make  enough  of  him  ;  it  seems  he  has 
written  a  book  upon  the  Digamma  ! " 

"  And  what  is  the  Digamma  ?  "  asks  Belinda  curtly, 
totally  unmoved  by  this  evidence  of  erudition. 

"  You  do  not  know  what  the  Digamma  is  ? "  cries 
Sarah,  lifting  her  eyebrows,  and  speaking  with  an  air  of 
pompous  astonishment.  "Well,  then,"  breaking  into  a 
laugh,  and  even  demeaning  herself  so  far  as  to  be  guilty 
of  the  faintest  possible  shadow  of  a  wink,  "  to  tell  you  a 
secret,  no  more  do  .1 !  " 

"  You  can  not  live  upon  the  Digamma,  I  suppose  ! " 


BELINDA.  15 


says  Belinda  grimly,  not  much  infected  by  her  sister's 
mirth. 

"  I  should  be  very  sorry  to  try  !  "  still  laughing. 

"  Then  I  am  quite  as  much  in  the  dark  as  ever  !  "  re- 
joins the  other,  inexorably  grave. 

"  Well,  it  was  not  only  the  Digamma,  of  course,"  says 
Sarah,  frowning  in  reluctant  retrospect ;  "  though  as  far 
as  I  could  make  out  that  appeared  to  be  his  cheval  de 
bataille ;  but  he  was  looked  upon  as  a  genius  generally. 
You  should  have  seen  how  they  all  sat  at  his  feet — such 
feet  I — and  hung  on  his  words.  There  was  one  girl — she 
was  at  Girton — who  waited  on  him  hand  and  foot ;  she 
always  warmed  his  great-coat  for  him,  and  helped  him  on 
with  his  goloshes  !  " 

"Well?" 

"Well,  you  know,"  impatiently,  as  if  stating  some- 
thing too  obvious  to  be  contradicted,  "one  would  not 
have  been  human  if  one  could  have  stood  calmly  by,  and 
looked  on.  I  rushed  into  the  fray.  I  too  warmed  his 
great-coat  and  put  on  his  goloshes.  Ugh  !  what  a  size 
they  were  !  I  could  have  lived  roomily  and  commodious- 
ly  in  one  of  them  ! " 

"Well?" 

"  Well,  indeed  !  I  do  not  call  it  at  all  well !  I  call  it 
very  ill ! " 

"  There  I  have  the  good  fortune  thoroughly  to  agree 
with  you." 

"  Well,  as  I  was  saying,"  resuming  the  thread  of  her 
narrative  with  a  heavy  sigh,  "  I  rushed  into  the  fray.  I 
was  successful,  dreadfully  successful !  You  know  the 
sequel,  as  they  say  in  books." 

"  I  do  not  know  the  sequel,"  replies  Belinda  sternly  ; 
"  all  I  know  is  that  I  will  have  neither  part  nor  lot  in  it !  " 

"  No  ?  and  yet,"  f awningly,  "  it  would  come  so  much 
better  from  you." 


16  BELINDA. 


"  Better  or  worse,  it  will  not  come  from  me." 

"  When  you  break  it  to  them,"  sidling  up  with  a  cajol- 
ing air,  "  it  does  not  hurt  them  nearly  so  much  !  I  de- 
clare I  think  they  almost  like  it !  " 

No  answer.  A  silence  cut  into  only  by  the  uncouth 
shriek  of  a  departing  engine. 

"  Why  at  least  did  you  drag  him  here  ?  "  asks  Belinda 
presently,  still  opposing  a  front  of  granite  to  her  sister's 
blandishments. 

"  I  am  afraid  I  can  not  quite  defend  it,"  replies  Sarah, 
in  a  small  voice,  and  again  hanging  her  head  ;  "  but  to 
tell  the  truth — which  indeed  I  always  try  to  do — times 
were  slack  !  There  was  nobody  else  much  just  then,  and 
I  thought  I  could  at  least  make  him  fetch  and  carry  ! " 
Then,  with  an  acute  change  of  key  and  access  of  emo- 
tion :  "  I  was  grossly  deceived  ;  he  is  too  disobliging  to 
fetch,  and  too  much  afraid  of  over-fatiguing  himself  to 
carry  ! " 

Another  pause.  A  quick  wind- whiff  tosses  through 
the  window  a  little  storm  of  pear-petals,  and  throws  them 
on  Belinda's  lap. 

"Now  if  the  cases  were  reversed,"  says  Sarah,  kneel- 
ing down  at  her  senior's  elbow,  and  folding  her  hands 
with  an  extremely  insinuating  gesture  of  supplication,  "  if 
you  were  in  difficulties — " 

"  I  never  am  in  difficulties.  " 

"  I  do  not  see  much  to  brag  of  in  that,  for  my  part !  " 
springing  to  her  feet  again. 

"  No  more  do  I,"  replies  Belinda  dryly.  "  I  am  never 
in  difficulties,  as  you  call  them,  because  I  never  have  any 
temptation  to  be  ;  perhaps  if  I  had  I  might ;  but  as  you 
are  well  aware,"  stifling  a  sigh,  "  I  have  not,  and  never 
had  any  charm  for  men  !  " 

"  It  is  very  odd,  is  not  it  ?  "  says  Sarah,  not  attempt- 
ing to  combat  this  assertion,  but  looking  at  her  sister 


BELINDA.-  17 


with  an  expression  of  compassionate  curiosity.  "I  can 
not  think  why  it  is.  I  have  often  wondered  what  the 
reason  could  be  ;  sometimes  I  think  it  is  your  nose  !  " 

"My  nose?"  repeats  Belinda  hastily,  involuntarily 
glancing  round  in  search  of  a  mirror,  and  putting  up  her 
hand  to  her  face  ;  "  what  is  the  matter  with  my  nose  ?  " 

"  There  is  nothing  the  matter  with  it,"  rejoins  Sarah, 
still  speculatively  gauging  her  sister's  attractions  ;  "per- 
haps it  would  be  better  for  you  if  there  were  ;  it  is  only 
too  good  !  I  can  not  fancy  any  man  venturing  to  love 
such  a  nose  ;  it  looks  too  high  and  mighty  to  inspire  any- 
thing short  of  veneration  !  " 

"  It  is  not  so  very  high  either ! "  cries  Belinda  hur- 
riedly, drawing  from  her  pocket  a  very  fine  handkerchief, 
and  applying  a  corner  of  it  in  careful  measurement  to 
her  traduced  feature.  "  There  ! "  marking  off  a  small 
portion  with  her  thumb  ;  "only  that  much." 

"  It  is  not  a  case  of  measurement,"  says  Sarah  gravely  ; 
"  I  have  seen  noses  several  hands  higher  that  were  not 
nearly  so  alarming.  It  is  a  case  of  feeling  ;  somehow 
yours  makes  them  feel  small.  Take  my  word  for  it," 
with  a  shrewd  look,  "  the  one  thing  that  they  never  can 
either  forgive  or  forget  is  to  be  made  to  feel  small." 

Belinda  laughs,  a  little  bitterly. 

"It  is  clear,  then,  that  nothing  short  of  amputation 
could  make  me  attractive,  and  I  am  afraid  even  that 
might  fail ;  but  I  do  not  know  why  we  digressed  to  me 
at  all." 

"  I  had  a  little  plan,"  says  Sarah,  her  airy  gayety  giv- 
ing sudden  place  again  to  gloom  at  the  returning  thought 
of  her  own  sorrows  ;  "but  you  have  frightened  it  away." 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  very  shortly. 

"  Well,  you  know,"  instantly  resuming  her  wheedling 
air  and  her  coaxing  posture  at  her  sister's  knees,  "that 
we  are  going  to  drive  to  Moritzburg  to-day,  you  and  I ; 


18  BELINDA. 


of  course  Professor  Forth,"  with  a  slight  grimace,  "  will 
be  on  duty  there  to  meet  us  ;  equally  of  course,  young 
Rivers,  who  seems  to  have  contracted  a  not  altogether 
reprehensible  habit  of  dogging  our  steps,  will  be  there 
too." 

"  Well  ?  "  averting  her  head  a  little. 

"  Well,  I  thought — but  you  are  not  a  pleasant  person 
to  unfold  one's  little  schemes  to — I  thought  that  for  once 
you  might  be  obliging,  and  pair  off  casually  with  my 
dear,  and  take  an  opportunity  of  softly  breathing  to  him 
that  nobody — I  least  of  all — will  try  to  stop  him  if  he 
effects  a  graceful  retreat  to  Oxbridge  and  the  Digamma  !  " 

"And  meanwhile  you?"  in  a  rather  low  and  sup- 
pressed voice,  and  with  face  still  turned  away. 

"And  meanwhile  I,"  replied  Sarah,  jovially,  "killing 
two  birds  with  one  stone — keeping  the  coast  clear,  that 
is  to  say,  and  marking  my  gratitude  for  that  haystack  of 
gardenias — shall  be  straying  hand-in-hand  through  the 
vernal  woods  with — " 

But  that  sentence  is  destined  never  to  be  ended. 

Belinda  has  risen  from  her  seat  with  a  gesture  so  sud- 
den and  violent  as  almost  to  destroy  the  equilibrium  of 
the  girl  so  caressingly  propped  against  her,  and  has  thrust 
head  and  neck  out  of  the  window,  as  if,  even  in  this  fresh 
room,  she  gasped  for  air. 

It  is  a  moment  before  she  speaks  ;  and  even  then  her 
voice  sounds  odd. 

"I  have  already  told  you  that  I  utterly  decline  to  be 
mixed  up  in  your  entanglements.  I  forbid  you  to  men- 
tion the  subject  to  me  again." 

"  Whew-w-w-w  ! "  says  Sarah  by-and-by,  in  a  low 
key,  when  she  has  recovered  the  breath  reft  from  her  by 
stupefaction  at  her  sister's  procedure,  enough  to  speak  at 
all ;  remaining  seated  meanwhile  in  stunned  isolation  on 
her  lonely  stool.  "  Forbid !  What  an  ugly  word ! 


BELINDA.  -  19 


After  all,"  speculatively,  "I  am  not  much  surprised  that 
men  are  frightened  at  you.  I  am  frightened  at  you  my- 
self sometimes  ;  and  so  no  wonder  that  they  shake  in 
their  shoes,  and  dare  not  call  their  harmless  souls  their 
own." 

"  How  many  times  are  you  going  to  tell  me  that  ? " 
cries  Belinda,  veering  round  in  sudden  passion.  "Do 
you  think  that  it  can  be  very  pleasant  to  hear  that  I  can 
never  inspire  anything  but  alarm  and  aversion?  I  am 
as  well  aware  of  it  as  you  can  be  ;  but  I  am  a  little  tired 
of  hearing  it." 

"  And  you  might  inspire  such  different  feelings,"  says 
Sarah,  in  a  tone  of  the  purest  artistic  regret  ;  "it  is  a 
pity  to  see  advantages  which  would  have  made  me  famous 
if  I  had  had  them,  absolutely  thrown  away  upon  you  !  I 
suppose,"  with  a  sigh,  "that  it  is  the  old  story  of  the 
people  with  large  appetites  and  nothing  to  eat,  and  the 
people  with  plenty  to  eat  and  no  appetites." 


CHAPTER  m. 

"  For  mirth  of  May,  with  skip  pis  and  with  hoppis, 
The  birdis  sang  upon  the  tender  croppis, 
With  curiose  notes,  as  Venus7  chapell  clerkis. 
The  roses  yong,  new  spreding  of  their  knoppis, 
Were  powdered  brycht  with  hevinly  beriall  droppis, 
Throu'  bemes  rede  birnyng  as  ruby  sperkis, 
The  skyes  rang  for  schouting  of  the  larkis." 

AWAY  they  go  to  Moritzburg,  when  the  noon  sun  is 
warm  and  high ;  away  they  go,  handsome,  gay,  and 
chaperonless.  There  is  no  reason  why  their  grandmother, 
who  is  a  perfectly  able-bodied  old  lady,  should  not  escort 
them  ;  but  as  she  is  sixty-five  years  of  age,  has  no  ex- 


20  BELINDA. 


pectation  of  meeting  a  lover,  and  is  quite  indifferent  to 
spring  tints  and  German  Schlosses,  she  wisely  chooses  to 
stay  at  home. 

"  If  you  can  not  behave  like  young  gentlewomen  with- 
out having  me  always  at  your  heels,  why  all  I  can  say, 
my  dears,  is  that  I  am  sorry  for  you,"  is  the  formula 
with  which  she  mostly  salves  her  own  conscience  and  dis- 
misses them. 

The  result  is,  perhaps,  not  worse  than  that  of  more 
pretentious  exhortations  ;  for  the  girls,  having  a  sense  *of 
being  on  parole,  do  behave  like  young  gentlewomen  ;  at 
least  Belinda  always  does,  and  Sarah  very  often. 

They  get  into  their  carriage  in  a  quick  and  cautious 
manner  ;  casting,  meanwhile,  apprehensive  glances  toward 
a  house  a  good  deal  lower  down  the  street,  and  which 
they  will  be  obliged  to  pass. 

"  Sarah,"  says  Belinda,  impressively,  unconsciously 
speaking  half  under  her  breath,  "  if  you  hear  a  window 
open,  mind  you  do  not  look  that  way  ;  she  is  quite  capa- 
ble of  bawling  at  us  from  the  balcony  ;  and  if  she  finds 
out  where  we  are  going  to,  she  is  certain  to  insist  on  com- 
ing too." 

"  If  she  gets  into  this  carriage  to-day,"  replies  Sarah, 
firmly,  "  it  will  be  over  my  dead  body  !  "  and  away  they 

go. 

"With  lowered  parasols  and  held  breath  they  pass  the 
dreaded  house — pass  it  in  safety.  Not  a  sound  issues 
from  its  silent  casements.  Away  they  go  across  the  Elbe, 
over  the  many-arched  bridge,  where  the  people,  more 
leisurely  than  in  our  breathless  London,  are  standing  to 
watch  the  rafts  floating  down  the  river,  and  guided  be- 
tween the  piles  ;  through  the  Neustadt,  where  the  Strong 
August  forever  prances  in  bronze  ;  past  the  Leipzig  Kail- 
way  Station,  under  the  Acacia  alley,  leaving  on  their  right 
the  great  new,  dreary  barracks,  backed  by  the  pine- 


BELINDA.  ~  21 


wood  ;  along,  along  between  the  young  birches  that,  silver- 
trunked,  baby-leaved,  stand  on  each  side  of  the  way  ;  off 
a-pleasuring  into  the  country. 

They  do  not  talk  much — at  least  to  each  other.  To 
herself,  Belinda  is  saying  over  and  over  the  same  one 
thing  continuously  :  "  He  will  not  be  there  !  I  do  not  at 
all  expect  him."  She  says  it  superstitiously,  in  the  trem- 
bling hope  that,  if  she  can  cajole  the  envious  gods  into 
believing  that  she  does  not  count  upon  it,  they  may  let 
her  have  her  wish.  "  He  will  not  be  there  ! "  But  her 
racing  pulse  and  her  flushing  cheeks  say  differently ; 
differently,  too,  say  the  wedded  birds  and  the  springing 
grasses  and  the  opening  buds.  They  say  altogether  : 

"  He  will  be  there  !     He  will— he  will !  " 

But,  perhaps,  besides  him  there  may  be  some  one  else 
not  quite  so  eagerly  desired. 

They  are  not  far  beyond  the  town,  and  are  joggling 
tranquilly  along  in  the  sunshine,  when  Belinda  is  roused 
with  a  start  from  her  love-musings  by  an  agitated  series 
of  ejaculations  from  Sarah. 

"  Belinda  !  She  is  there  !  On  your  side.  Quick  ! 
Hold  down  your  parasol !  Perhaps  she  may  not  see  us." 

Swift  as  lightning  Belinda  has  obeyed.  Totally  irre- 
spective of  the  sun's  position,  her  en-tout-cas  stoops  till  it 
shields — imperviously,  one  would  think — the  inmates  of 
the  carriage  from  all  passers-by  on  that  side. 

But  there  are  eyes,  hard,  horny,  and  inquisitive,  to 
which  an  en-tout-cas — nay,  a  stone  wall,  if  need  be — is  as 
glass.  The  coachman  checks  his  horses  ;  and  Sarah, 
leaning  angrily  out  to  bid  him  drive  quicker,  perceives 
that  he  has  no  alternative,  if  he  would  not  drive  over  a 
burly,  middle  -  aged  figure  gesticulating  with  raised 
arms  and  waved  umbrella  in  mid-road,  and  crying 
"  Halt,  Kutscher ! "  with  all  the  power  of  a  strong  pair 
of  lungs. 


22  BELINDA, 


66  It  is  no  use  ! "  says  the  girl,  sinking  back  in  dis- 
gusted resignation  on  the  cushions.  "It  never  is  any 
use  !  " 

The  next  moment  the  lady  to  whom  she  alludes  is 
presenting  a  hot,  red  face,  a  grizzled  fringe  of  hair,  and  a 
large-patterned  black  and  white  plaid  gown,  at  the  car- 
riage-door. 

"  I  was  afraid  you  might  not  see  me  !  "  she  says,  shak- 
ing hands  warmly.  "How  are  you?  Where  are  you 
going  to  ?  I  thought  I  must  just  stop  you  for  a  minute, 
to  ask  where  you  are  going  to  ?  To  Moritzburg  ?  How 
pleasant  !  I  wish  I  were  going  to  Moritzburg  too  !  " 
Then,  as  no  invitation  follows  this  very  broad  hint :  "  I 
dare  say,  now,  as  you  seem  to  have  plenty  of  room,  you 
would  not  mind  giving  me  a  lift." 

"  It  would  be  delightful !  "  said  Belinda,  with  suspi- 
cious precipitancy  ;  "  but  I  am  afraid — " 

"  I  do  not  in  the  least  mind  sitting  back,  if  that  is 
what  you  are  going  to  say.  It  is  all  one' to  me  how  I  sit. 
If  you  had  traveled  as  much  as  I,  it  would  be  all  one  to 
you  ! " 

"If  Belinda  had  traveled  as  much  as  you,"  says  Sa- 
rah sarcastically,  "  I  am  sure  that  her  one  hope  and  prayer 
would  be  to  be  allowed  to  stay  at  home  for  the  rest  of  her 
life.  Well,"  with  a  would-be-valedictory  wave  of  the 
hand,  "  it  is  too  unlucky  ;  but  as  we  have  unfortunately 
promised  to  meet  some  people — " 

"  Some  people  !  What  people  ?  "  repeats  the  other 
inquisitively.  "  Any  one  I  know,  I  wonder  ?  Professor 
Forth,  of  course,  for  one,"  with  a  meaning  smile.  "  I  saw 
him  setting  off  this  morning  somewhere.  I  knew  that  it 
must  be  an  excursion  of  some  kind,  because  he  had  two 
overcoats  ;  but  I  could  not  make  out  where.  I  asked  at 
his  lodgings,  but  the  Dienst-madchen  did  not  know.  And 
Rivers — young  Rivers  ? — are  you  going  to  meet  him  too  ? 


BELINDA.  23 


A  propos,  what  Rivers  is  lie  ?  I  want  to  find  out  what 
Rivers  he  is  ;  I  know  so  many  Rivers." 

"  I  will  ask  him  at  once,"  says  Sarah  gravely.  "  I  will 
say  to  him,  '  What  Rivers  are  you  ?  '  Au  revoir.  Drive 
on,  Kutscher." 

"  Where  are  you  going  to-morrow  ?  What  are  you 
going  to  do  to-morrow  ?  Will  you  come  to  Wesen stein  ? 
I  want  you  all  to  come  to  Wesenstein  !  With  a  little 
packing  we  might  all  get  into  one  carriage.  What  do 
you  say  to  a  long  day  at  Wesenstein  ?  or,  better  still, 
Tharandt?  What  do  you  say  to  a  long  day  at  Tha- 
randt  ?  " 

But  the  carriage  has  rolled  inexorably  away  ;  and  the 
latter  part  of  these  propositions  is  addressed  to  the  empty 
air. 

"A  form  of  thanksgiving  to  be  used  on  land  !  "  says 
Sarah,  drawing  a  long  breath,  and  blowing  a  kiss  in  ironi- 
cal adieu  to  the  lessening  figure  of  their  baffled  friend. 

They  are  nearing  their  goal  now.  Along  the  straight 
avenue  of  young  horse-chestnuts  and  limes  they  trot ;  the 
wind-swept  flat  plain  on  either  hand,  and  the  long  vista 
of  tree-shaded  road,  ended  by  the  Schloss. 

They  are  driving  up  to  the  Gast-hoff  Au  Bon  Marche. 
Belinda  shuts  her  eyes.  If  he  is  here,  he  will  be  to  be 
seen  at  once,  or  not  at  all.  If  he  is  not  here,  she  will  be 
ignorant  of  it  for  yet  one  moment  more.  She  shuts  her 
eyes  ;  but  in  an  instant  Sarah's  sarcastic  ejaculation,  ob- 
viously called  forth  by  the  first  sight  of  her  betrothed, 
"  My  king  !  my  king  !  "  makes  her  open  them  again  ;  open 
them  to  see  that  she  has  succeeded  in  tricking  the  gods  ; 
that  he  is  here  ;  and  that,  judging  by  his  looks,  he  too 
has  been  shutting  his  eyes  and  dreading. 

"  How  do  you  do  ?  "  says  Sarah  gayly,  giving  him  her 
hand  ;  "  I  have  a  message  for  you  from  Miss  Watson  ; 
she  wants  to  know  what  Rivers  you  are  !  I  was  so  afraid 


24:  BELINDA. 


of  forgetting  that  I  thought  I  had  better  deliver  it  at 
once  ;  think  it  over,  I  advise  you,  against  you  meet  her 
next.  Bah  !  he  does  not  hear  a  word  I  say  ! " 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  later  they  are  all  seated  on  deal 
chairs  at  a  deal  table  under  a  primitive  shed,  that  does 
duty  as  an  arbor ;  waited  on  by  a  civil,  homely  Dienst- 
madchen  in  a  blue  bib,  and  eating  beefsteaks.  At  least 
two  of  them  are.  Two  of  them  are  past  eating.  For 
them  the  beefsteak  cuts  juicily  ;  for  them  the  schnitzel 
swims  greasily  ;  for  them  the  excellent  light  lager-bier 
foams  in  lidded  mugs — in  vain.  It  is  indeed  dubious 
whether  any  one  except  Sarah  enjoys  the  luncheon  qud 
luncheon.  The  Professor  is  doubtful  as  to  the  digestibil- 
ity of  the  schnitzel,  and  more  than  doubtful  as  to  the  pru- 
dence of  lunching  out  of  doors  in  a  high  wind  on  the  2d 
of  May.  He  had  indeed  gone  so  far  as  to  have  luncheon 
laid  in  the  little  beer-and-smoke-stained  inn  parlor  ;  but 
his  betrothed  has  explained  to  him  so  kindly,  yet  firmly, 
that  if  he  lunches  indoors  he  will  lunch  alone,  that  he  has 
sullenly  submitted,  merely  putting  on  ostentatiously,  one 
atop  of  another,  the  two  overcoats  which,  as  Miss  Watson 
faithfully  reported,  he  had  providently  brought  with  him. 
And  yet,  though  the  wind  is  high,  it  is  not  spiteful.  It 
rocks  playfully  the  tall  oleanders  in  pots,  and  swings  the 
little  wooden  boxes  hung  in  the  trees  to  oblige  the  birds, 
who  find  them  a  quite  satisfactory  substitute  for  nests, 
judging,  at  least,  by  the  easy  cheerfulness  with  which  the 
short-tailed,  wise-faced  starlings  go  in  and  out  of  the  tiny 
apertures. 

Whether  or  not  it  has  pleased  or  been  digestible, 
luncheon  is  now  ended,  and  Professor  Forth  is  surveying 
the  bill  through  his  spectacles. 

"  Six  marks,  sixty  pfennigs  !  "  he  says,  proclaiming  the 
total  in  a  tone  which  announces  how  very  far  from  con- 
tent he  is  with  it ;  "  one  mark,  sixty-five  pfennigs  a  head  ! 


BELINDA,    u.  25 


A  very  high  charge,  I  should  say  ;  undoubtedly  prices  in 
Germany  have  doubled  since  the  war  !  Viermal  Bifstek  I " 
reading  aloud  the  items— "as  it  turned  out,  zweimal 
would  have  been  ample.  Zweimal  IZartoffeln — " 

He  breaks  off  suddenly,  for  Sarah  has  twitched  the 
paper  out  of  his  hand. 

"  In  mercy  spare  us  !  "  she  cries.  "  What  can  be  more 
dreadful  than  the  recapitulation  of  the  items  of  the  food 
one  has  just  swallowed  !  it  is  like  beginning  luncheon  all 
over  again,  to  which,  with  my  present  feelings,  death 
would  be  preferable  !  " 

By-and-by  they  set  off  to  visit  the  Schloss — the  four- 
towered  Schloss,  with  its  round  red  domes,  and  all  its  little 
pinnacles  and  dormer  windows — falling,  as  they  go,  into 
two  couples,  though  this  is  not  accomplished  without  a 
slight  manoeuvring  on  the  part  of  one. 

"In  heaven's  name  stop  a  moment  to  admire  this 
pump  !  "  says  Rivers,  in  an  eager  whisper  to  Belinda. 
"  Nothing  to  admire  in  it  ? — of  course  there  is  not !  I 
never  saw  an  uglier  pump  in  my  life,  but  it  will  give  them 
a  good  start ! " 

"  Are  you  so  sure  that  they  are  anxious  to  get  a  good 
start?"  asks  Belinda  with  a  significant  look  ahead  at 
Sarah,  who,  continually  throwing  back  restless  glances 
over  her  shoulder,  lagging,  stopping  on  every  possible 
pretext,  if  she  cherishes  a  desire  for  a  t$te-d-tetey  certainly 
disguises  it  admirably. 

"  I  am  not  at  all  sure,"  replies  the  young  man,  with 
a  dry  laugh.  "What  I  am  sure  of  is  that  I  wish 
it." 

"Do  you  think  that  her  back  looks  as  if  she  were 
being  tolerably  civil  to  him  ?  "  pursues  Belinda,  talking 
on  quickly  and  nervously  ;  "  one  can  gather  so  much 
from  a  person's  back.  I  am  afraid  that  the  way  in  which 
she  is  jerking  her  head  about  does  not  augur  very  well 
2 


26  BELINDA. 


for  him.  Was  not  she  rude  to  him  at  luncheon  ?  he  must 
have  heard  her  whisper  to  me  that  he  was  an  old  skin- 
flint." 

"  Perhaps  they  are  all  right  when  they  are  alone,"  re- 
plies Rivers  sanguinely. 

Belinda  shakes  her  head. 

"I  doubt  it  I" 

They  have  reached  the  Schloss  and  its  broad  slabbed 
terrace.  Belinda  is  leaning  on  the  old  stone  balustrade, 
low  and  weather-worn,  that  runs  round  it.  Her  eyes  ure 
fixed  on  the  carved  stone  figures,  weather-worn  too,  that 
stand  out  against  the  pallid  fair  sky  in  their  old-world 
quaintness  ;  the  fat  Cupids  with  abnormal  Dachshunds  ; 
the  ancient  vases,  rough  with  stone  lilies  and  roses  ;  the 
fat  Cupids  again. 

Belinda  looks  at  the  Cupids,  and  Rivers  looks  at  her  ; 
looks  at  her  as  a  wholesome  minded  and  bodied  boy  of 
twenty-two  does  look  at  his  first  love.  To  him  nothing 
now  exists  save  that  opaque  white  cheek  ;  that  small  dis- 
dainful nose,  on  which  Sarah  hangs  all  its  owner's  mis- 
chances ;  that  lovely  stature  that  makes  other  women 
look  squat  and  bunchy.  To  him  all  creation  that  is  not 
Belinda — sun,  moon,  stars,  Schloss,  Professor,  bifsteks — 
is  an  irrelevant  and  impertinent  accident. 

"  He  might  not  in  house,  field,  or  garden  stir, 
But  her  full  shape  would  all  his  seeing  fill." 

"  After  all,"  he  says,  with  a  trembling  in  his  vigorous, 
fresh  voice,  "I  do  not  think  that  I  should  much  mind 
how  like  a  dog  the  woman  I  loved  treated  me  in  com- 
pany, if  she  were — if  she  were — as  I  would  have  her  when 
we  were  alone  ! " 

"  Would  not  you  ?  "  replies  Belinda,  suddenly  chang- 
ing color  at  the  application  that  she  herself  makes  of  this 
speech  ;  and  then,  in  fevered  consciousness  of  her  own 


BELINDA.  27 


untimely  flush,  she  adds  with  a  callous,  cold  laugh  :  "  I 
think  I  should  agree  with  the  poet  : 

"  *  Perhaps  it  was  right  to  dissemble  your  love, 
But  why  need  you  kick  me  down-stairs  ? ' " 

The  poor  boy  looks  terribly  thrown  back  ;  and,  indeed, 
what  ardent  young  lover  would  not,  at  such  a  turn  given 
to  a  tender  speech  ?  And  yet  in  her  heart  she  had  felt  as 
tender  as  he,  though  no  human  being  could  have  guessed 
it.  Both  now  lean  their  elbows  on  the  balustrade,  and 
look  down  on  the  garden  grass,  and  the  stiff  fir-trees  cut 
into  prim  yew-shapes  ;  so  that,  unless  you  look  at  them 
very  closely,  you  would  swear  that  they  were  yews.  And 
beyond  the  grass  and  the  firs  comes  the  ruffled  blue  water, 
which,  like  a  broad  moat,  girds  the  Schloss  around.  The 
water  is  running  to-day  into  little  waves  and  ridges ;  and 
trees  just  greening  are  verdantly  bordering  its  brim.  In 
the  garden  beneath  the  fir-trees  a  pair  of  figures  are  seen 
soberly  pacing. 

"  There  they  are ! "  cries  Belinda,  pointing  to  them, 
and  thankful  for  a  safe  subject  with  which  to  break  the 
strained  silence ;  "  is  it  possible  that  she  has  taken  his 
arm  ?  No  ;  I  thought  it  could  not  be  !  I  wonder  what 
progress  she  has  made  toward  telling  him  that  she  does 
not  mean  to  marry  him." 

"  Is  that  what  she  is  telling  him  ?  "  says  Rivers,  roused 
to  interest  by  fellow-feeling,  and  craning  his  neck  to  look ; 
"  unhappy  old  devil !  " 

Belinda  nods. 

"  I  think  so  ;  that  is  what  she  meant  to  tell  him  ;  and, 
if  I  do  not  mistake,  his  haggling  over  the  luncheon  gave 
him  his  coup  de  grdce." 


28  BELINDA. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

"  In  every  well-conditioned  stripling,  as  I  conjecture,  there  already 
blooms  a  certain  prospective  Paradise,  cheered  by  some  fairest  Eve." 

PRESENTLY  they  move,  and  passing  down  the  slabbed 
incline,  and  across  the  water  into  the  King's  garden,  tread 
very  slowly  the  fine  gravel  of  the  broad  walk,  as  sentinels 
on  either  hand  of  which  stand  heaven-high  firs,  that  yet 
have  been  clipped  out  of  all  fir  semblance,  and,  like  their 
brothers  round  the  Schloss,  wear  the  likeness  of  yews,  cut 
into  such  tall,  narrow  sugar-loafs,  that  their  forest  kin 
would  disown  them.  Silently  they  step  along.  Perhaps 
the  utter  repose,  the  absence  of  progress  and  hurry,  the 
sober  stillness  of  all  around,  tells  sleepily  upon  their 
young  spirits.  Perhaps  to  them  speech  is  not  so  easy  as 
it  was  a  month  ago.  It  is  Belinda  who  resumes  the  con- 
versation. 

"  I  suppose  that  it  will  devolve  upon  me,  after  all  ?  " 
she  says,  with  a  sigh. 

"That  what  will  devolve  upon  you?"  asks  Rivers 
dreamily. 

He  has  forgotten  all  about  Professor  Forth,  and  is 
lost  in  a  sea  of  speculation  as  to  whether  ever  woman  in 
this  world  before  had  such  a  short  upper  lip. 

"  To  tell  Professor  Forth  that  I  do  not  think  he  will 
be  my  brother-in-law,"  she  answers,  smiling. 

"You  think  that  Miss  Churchill  will  shirk  it?"  ab- 
sently. 

The  Professor  is  still  a  mist-figure  to  him.  It  is  her 
chin  now.  Was  there  ever  such  a  ravishing  round 
chin? 

"  I  think  so  ;  she  generally  does." 

"  Generally!"  awaked  for  a  moment  from  his  trance 
by  shocked  surprise.  "  Does  it  often  happen  ?  " 


BELINDA.  29 


"  It  was  a  slip  of  the  tongue,"  she  answers,  laughing ; 
"it  has  happened  once  or  twice  before." 

"  And  you  ?  " 

The  bold  wind  has  loosened  a  very  small  strand  of 
her  hair,  and  is  blowing  it  against  her  cheek.  How  many 
years  of  his  life — ten  ?  fifteen  ?  twenty  ? — would  he  give 
to  be  allowed  to  replace  it  behind  her  ear  ? 

"  And  I  ?  Oh,  I  dry  the  victims'  eyes,  and  tell  them 
that  there  is  as  good  fish  in  the  sea  as  ever  came  out  of 
it." 

"  And  yours  ?  "  that  little  lock  is  still  frolicking  dis- 
tractingly  ;  ought  he  to  tell  her  of -it  ?  "  Who  dries  your 
victims'  eyes  ?  " 

"  They  have  not  any  eyes  to  dry,"  she  answers  pre- 
cipitately. "  I  do  not  mean  that  they  are  blind,  but  that 
there  are  no  such  people  ;  they  do  not  exist." 

"You  mean,  I  suppose,"  he  says,  reddening,  "that  I 
had  no  business  to  ask  about  them  ?  " 

"  I  mean  what  I  say,  neither  more  nor  less  :  they  do 
not  exist ! " 

Her  tone  is  cold  and  trenchant,  as  of  one  who  would 
check  a  displeasing  topic.  In  point  of  fact  it  is  intense 
shyness — the  shyness  of  hearing  herself  talked  about,  and 
talked  about  by  him — that  makes  it  so  ;  but  to  a  listener 
it  has  all  the  effect  of  a  freezing  haughtiness,  repressing 
impudent  intrusion.  She  hears  it  herself  with  bitter- 
ness. 

"  Is  it  any  wonder  that  no  one  has  ever  loved  me  ?  " 
she  says  internally. 

It  is  clear  that  he  hears  it  too. 

"  You  are  offended,"  he  cries  miserably.  "  I  wish  to 
heaven  that  I  had  never  come  to-day  !  Everything  has 
gone  wrong !  You  let  Professor  Forth  help  you  out  of 
the  carriage  !  you  let  him  hand  you  the  potatoes — " 

She  smiles  involuntarily. 


30  BELINDA. 


"  On  the  contrary  :  he  recommended  me  not  to  take 
any  ;  he  said  they  were  rancid  ! " 

"  You  let  him  pick  up  your  pocket-handkerchief  !  " 

Again  she  smiles  more  broadly. 

"  He  certainly  did  not  avail  himself  of  the  permission. 
I  think  that  his  knees  are  scarcely  supple  enough  for  him 
to  be  very  anxious  to  pick  up  even  Sarah's." 

As  she  speaks  she  puts  up  her  hand  and  carelessly 
pushes  back  her  wandering  love-lock  ;  but  one  little  ten- 
dril still  escapes  and  frisks  in  the  breeze. 

He  thrusts  his  hands  hard  down  into  his  pockets  to 
resist  the  intense  though  monstrous  temptation  to  aid  her 
in  its  recapture. 

"  If  you  knew,"  he  says  hurriedly,  "  what  I  felt  when 
you  drove  up  to  the  Gast-hof  to-day  ;  in  what  an  agony 
of  dread  lest  you  should  think  me  presumptuous  for 
having  forced  myself  into  your  party — lest  you  should 
murder  me  with  one  of  those  terrible  frozen  looks  of 
yours — " 

"  One  of  those  terrible  frozen  looks  of  mine  ?  "  repeats 
she,  with  a  puzzled  air.  "  It  is  very  odd  !  I  wonder  how 
I  do  them?" 

"  You  may  think  me  as  great  an  ass  as  you  please," 
pursues  he  rapidly — "  and,  indeed,  you  would  not  be  hu- 
man if  you  did  not — but  I  give  you  my  word  of  honor, 
for  the  first  moment  I  dared  not  look.  I  shut  my  eyes  !  " 

At  that  she  smiles  subtilely. 

"  How,  in  Heaven's  name,  have  you  managed  to  make 
me  so  much  afraid  of  you?"  continues  the  lad,  with 
gathering  agitation.  "  You  are  never  rude  ;  you  are  not 
sarcastic  ;  nothing  makes  you  angry ;  you  speak  most 
softly  ;  and  yet — " 

"And  yet,"  she  says,  finishing  his  sentence  for  him 
with  a  rather  bitter  smile,  "and  yet  you  shake  in  your 
shoes  before  me !  I  know  you  all  do.  Ever  since  I 


BELINDA.  31 


grew  up — nay,  before  ;  I  think  that  at  fourteen  I  began 
to  inspire  dread — I  have  always  been  hearing  how  fright- 
ened people  are  of  me.  It  is  so  pleasant !  No  doubt 
you  had  been  told  it  before  you  came  to  know  me,  had 
not  you  ?  " 

In  the  eagerness  of  that  query  she  has  stopped  and 
faced  him,  the  color  hurrying  up  to  her  cheeks,  and  her 
eyes  fastened  in  imperative  asking  on  his. 

He  does  not  answer  for  a  moment.  He  is  dizzily 
marveling  whether  blood  of  so  wondrous  a  tint  had  ever 
flooded  lily  cheek  before.  She  repeats  her  question  with 
emphasis : 

"Had  not  you?" 

"  I — I — had  heard  that  you  snubbed  people  !  " 

"Have  you  found  it  true?"  she  says,  in  a  low  and 
rather  anxious  voice.  "Have  I — have  I — "  hesitating, 
"  snubbed  you  ?  " 

To  this  question  she  has  honestly  expected  a  reply  in 
the  negative,  and  is  proportionately  startled  by  the  virile 
energy  of  the  affirmative  that  instead  follows.  "That 
you  have — times  out  of  mind  !  " 

"  Have  I  ? "  she  says,  in  a  key  of  genuine  bewilder- 
ment. "  How  ?  when  ?  where  ?  What  is  it  that  I  do  ?  " 

He  does  not  answer. 

"  Is  it,"  she  goes  on  diffidently,  Sarah's  dictum  as  to 
the  one  unforgivable  sin  commitable  by  women  against 
men  flashing  across  her  mind,  sinister  and  appropriate — 
"  is  it  that  I  make  you  feel  small  ?  " 

"  Small !  Yes,"  assents  he,  with  pungent  emphasis  ; 
"  I  should  think  you  did  !  invisibly,  imperceptibly  small. 
But  that  is  not  the  worst.  I  was  prepared  for  that.  I 
had  heard  it  was  your  way  !  " 

She  laughs  grimly.     "  What  a  pleasant  way  !  " 

"  There  are  days  on  which — I  do  not  know  how  you 
do  it — you  make  me  feel  as  aloof  from  you  as  if-1-" 


32  BELINDA. 


"As  if  what?" 

"  As  if  I  were  down  here,  and  you  were — " 

"  And  I  were  what  ?  "  with  an  accent  of  sincere  and 
puzzled  curiosity. 

"  And  you  were — and  you  were — one  of  the  heavenly 
host  up  there  ! "  ends  the  young  man,  baldly  and  stam- 
mering. But  love  is  no  brightener  of  the  wits. 

"One  of  the  heavenly  host  ?"  repeats  she,  justly  in- 
furiate at  this  stale  comparison.  "  An  angel,  in  short ! 
Must  I  always  be  an  angel,  or  a  goddess  ?  If  any  one 
knew  how  sick  I  am  of  being  a  goddess  !  I  declare  I 
should  be  thankful  to  be  called  a  Fury,  or  even  a  Ghoul, 
for  a  change  ! " 

So  saying,  she  turns  her  shoulder  peevishly  to  him  ; 
and  leaving  the  garden,  begins  to  walk  quickly  along  the 
road  by  the  water,  as  if  to  make  up  for  her  late  loitering. 
He  keeps  pace  with  her,  dumb  in  snubbed  contrition, 
stupefied  by  love,  and,  unhappily  for  himself,  fully  con- 
scious of  it ;  burningly  aware  of  the  hopeless  flatness  of 
his  last  simile,  and  rendered  by  his  situation  quite  in- 
capable of  redeeming  it  by  any  brighter  sally. 

Presently  they  leave  the  water  and  all  its  rioting 
wavelets,  and  pace  through  the  fir- wood  toward  the  little 
Schloss — the  big  one's  quaint  baby-brother. 

Beneath  the  fir-trees  the  blue  hepaticas  flower  plenti- 
ful and  late,  and  the  young  stitchworts  open  their  fresh 
eyes  to  the  spring.  Regardless  of  ten-groschen  penalties, 
Belinda  leaves  the  road,  and  stoops  to  pick  the  little 
blossoms. 

Docilely  following  her  motions,  he  stoops  and  picks 
too.  He  picks  to  more  purpose  than  she,  indeed  ;  for 
when,  by-and-by,  they  straighten  themselves  again  and 
compare  results,  his  is  by  far  the  largest  nosegay. 

"Will  you  take  them?"  he  says,  timidly  proffering 
them,  for  her  tart  speech  has  robbed  him  of  his  last 


BELINDA.  33 


barleycorn  of  courage  ;  "or  shall  I— shall  I— carry  them 
for  you  ?  " 

What  would  not  he  carry  for  her?  A  newspaper 
parcel  down  St.  James's  Street ;  a  bulging  carpet-bag 
through  Rotten  Row  ! 

"  Thank  you,  I  will  carry  them  myself,"  she  answers, 
stretching  out  her  pretty,  bare  hand  for  them.  "  They 
shall  make  up  to  me,"  smiling,  "for  the  gardenias  of 
which  I  was  deprived  by — an  accident.  Do  you  know 
that  I  was  not  allowed  even  to  smell  them  ?  Did  not  I 
bear  my  loss  like  a  Trojan  ?  "  Then,  hesitating  a  little, 
she  steps  a  pace  or  so  nearer  to  him,  and,  half  shyly  hold- 
ing out  her  own  little  bunch,  "  Exchange  is  no  robbery," 
she  says  with  a  soft  look.  "  Will  you,"  gently  mocking 
his  frightened  tone,  "  will  you  take  them  ?  or  shall  I — 
shall  I — carry  them  for  you  ?  " 

He  makes  her  no  answer ;  he  is  quite  unable.  The 
tears  have  sprung  to  his  eyes.  He  is  very  young,  has 
never  loved  before  ;  and  it  seems  to  him  that  at  that  fair 
hand  holding  out  its  little  blue  bunch,  heaven  opens  to 
him. 

There  are  days  on  which  heaven  opens  to  us  all,  but 
to  most  of  us  next  day  it  shuts  again. 

Above  them  the  pines  lay  their  dark  heads  stilly  to- 
gether against  the  fair  sky,  that  looks  austere,  yet  not 
unkind.  Here  the  loud  wind  is  kept  at  bay,  and  whispers 
scarcely  more  noisily  than  they  themselves  are  doing  in 
their  safe  retreat. 

With  what  halting  words  of  lame  ecstasy  he  would 
have  thanked  her  will  never  now  be  known.  Dumbly  he 
has  received  her  gift,  refraining,  by  what  iron  constraint 
put  upon  himself,  from  any  least  detention  of  those  cool, 
pale  fingers  that  just  unintentionally  touch  his,  and  then 
innocently  withdraw.  The  laboring  syllables  that  are 
struggling  to  his  lips  are  forever  driven  thence  by  the 


34  BELINDA. 


sound  of  a  high-pitched  young  voice  calling  clearly- 
through  the  still  wood  : 

"  Where  are  you  ?  What  has  become  of  you  ?  We 
have  been  searching  high  and  low  for  you !  Have  you 
been  searching  high  and  low  for  us  f  Ah  !  evidently  you 
have  !  "  laughing  ironically.  "  Well,  now  you  have  had 
the  good  fortune  to  find  us  ! " 

Ere  the  end  of  this  sentence,  Sarah  has  frisked  up  to 
them,  and,  for  the  time,  heaven's  door  shuts  in  their  faces, 
and  earth's  dull  portals  reopen  for  them. 

"  Are  you  aware  that  there  is  a  fine  of  ten  groschen 
for  leaving  the  road  ?  "  calls  out  the  Professor  from  the 
distance,  but  nobody  heeds  him. 

"Are  you  picking  flowers?"  asks  Sarah  demurely. 
"  How  nice  !  Pick  me  some."  Then  turning  to  Rivers, 
she  adds  maliciously  :  "  I  am  not  greedy ;  I  shall  be  quite 
content  with  that  miserable  little  bunch  that  you  are 
clutching  so  tightly.  Give  it  me  !  " 

But  at  that  he  finds  his  tongue  again. 

"  Not  if  you  were  to  go  down  on  your  knees  to  me  for 
it ! "  he  cries  tragically,  lifting  his  right  hand  and  holding 
his  poor  little  prize  high  above  her  restless,  small  head. 

"  Not  if  I  were  to  go  down  on  my  knees  ?  "  repeats  she 
in  accents  of  the  deepest  incredulity.  "  Come,  that  is  trop 
fort !  It  is  worth  putting  to  the  test ! " 

As  she  speaks,  she  sinks  at  once  upon  her  knees  on  the 
crushed  herbage,  and  joining  her  hands  as  in  prayer,  looks 
up  at  him,  and  says,  in  a  small,  childish  voice,  whose  allur- 
ing properties  she  has  tested  on  many  a  hard -fought  field, 
"Please!" 

She  might  as  well  have  knelt  to  and  allured  one  of  the 
solemn,  straight  pines.  He  does  not  even  avert  his  eyes 
from  her,  as  though,  if  he  saw  her,  he  must  yield.  He 
looks  her  full  in  the  face,  and  says  doggedly  : 

"  Not  if  you  knelt  there  till  the  Day  of  Judgment !  " 


BELINDA.  35 


"  What  are  you  about,  Sarah  ?  "  comes  the  Professor's 
voice  again,  from  the  road,  where  the  ten-groschen  penalty 
still  keeps  him.  "Are  not  you  aware  that  although  the 
grass  may  appear  dry  on  the  surface,  the  ground  still 
contains  a  great  deal  of  latent  moisture  ! " 

But  a  second  time  he  speaks  to  the  wind. 

"Not  if  I  knelt  here  till  the  Day  of  Judgment?" 
repeats  Sarah,  still  hardly  believing  her  own  ears ;  then 
wisely  taking  the  only  course  left  open  to  her,  with  as 
good  a  grace  as  may  be  :  "If  that  is  the  case,  of  course  I 
will  get  up  again  at  once  ! " 

So  saying  she  rises,  apparently  not  at  all  put  out  of 
countenance,  and  flicks  the  bits  of  grass  from  the  knees 
that  had  bent  in  vain. 

"  Do  not  you  wish  to  see  the  King's  boars  fed  ?  I 
understood  you  to  say  that  you  wished  to  see  the  King's 
boars  fed  !  "  shouts  the  Professor,  striking  in  snappishly 
the  third  time,  the  contumely  with  which  his  remarks 
have  been  treated  beginning  to  tell  very  perceptibly  upon 
his  tone. 

"  The  King's  boars  ?  "  repeats  Sarah,  sotto  voce,  de- 
scending to  a  degrading  pun,  and  accompanying  it  with 
a  wink  that  is  worthy  of  it.  "  Do  you  think  the  King 
has  room  for  one  more  in  his  menagerie  ?  If  so,  I  might 
be  permitted  to  offer  him  mine  !  Yes,"  raising  her  voice, 
and  beginning  to  trip  back  toward  her  betrothed,  "of 
course  we  are  coming  !  " 

She  has  not  gone  two  steps,  however,  before  she  be- 
thinks herself  ;  and,  turning  back,  tucks  her  arm  deter- 
minedly under  her  sister's. 

"  Belinda,"  she  says  resolutely,  "  you  have  not  seen 
the  Little  Schloss !  you  have  not  seen  the  light-house  ! 
you  have  not  seen  the  pheasantries  !  you  shall  see  the 
boars  ! " 

So  saying  she  sweeps  her  off  hurriedly  ahead ;  and 


36  BELINDA. 


Rivers,  cursing  fearfully,  is  compelled  to  follow  with  the 
Professor,  with  whom  he  has  about  as  much  in  common 
as  a  non-reading,  hard-rowing,  foot-balling,  cricketing  un- 
dergraduate mostly  has  with  an  exceptionally  stiff-backed 
and  donnish  Don. 

Nor  is  the  Professor,  whose  contempt  for  undergradu- 
ates in  general  is  not  to  be  equaled  save  by  his  aversion, 
very  much  better  pleased  with  the  arrangement. 

However,  it  does  not  last  long.  A  few  minutes  of 
brisk  walking  brings  them  to  the  clear  space  in  midwood 
— the  sandy  spot  railed  round  with  palings — where  his 
Majesty  of  Saxony's  pigs  have  their  daily  rations  dealt 
out  to  them. 

There  the  girls  sit  down  on  the  wooden  bench  pro- 
vided for  the  accommodation  o.J  admiring  spectators. 
Many  dark  forms  have  already  arrived,  and  are  rooting 
and  grubbing  hither  and  thither.  They  have  immensely 
long  noses,  long  dark  hair,  large  dark  ears  ;  hind-quarters 
that  run  away  like  hyenas,  and  a  general  air  of  absurdity 
and  unpiglike  pigness.  Among  them  are  several  fierce- 
looking  old  gentlemen  with  their  ugly  lips  lifted  over 
formidable  tusks,  shaggy  as  bears,  and  with  their  long 
gray  hair  wet  and  shiny,  as  if  they  had  been  rolling  in 
some  muddy  place.  Every  moment  there  is  an  arrival  ; 
a  fresh  pig,  two  fresh  pigs  emerging  from  the  wood  and 
trotting  hastily,  with  ears  anxiously  erect,  to  the  rendez- 
vous, afraid  of  having  arrived  too  late. 

About  the  whole  family,  when  united,  there  is  a  gen- 
eral unamiability,  a  spiteful  biting  and  nipping  at  each 
other ;  a  squeaking  and  angrily  grunting  ;  a  wrathful 
pursuit  and  hasty  flight.  The  little  piglets,  tawny-colored 
and  striped  like  tiny  tigers,  toddle  sweetly  about  in  their 
artless  babyhood. 

Irresistibly  attracted  by  the  childlike  graces  of  one  of 
these  latter,  yet  smaller,  more  striped,  weirder  than  its 


BELINDA.  37 


brethren,  Sarah  has  run  after  it,  and  is  now  scampering 
in  pursuit  round  the  arena. 

The  Professor,  relieved  at  having  found  a  sandy  spot, 
is  standing,  stork-like,  at  a  little  distance  off,  poised  on 
one  leg,  and  cautiously  seeking  for  traces  of  moisture  on 
the  sole  of  the  other  boot. 

Once  more  Rivers  and  Belinda  are  alone. 

"  I  will  be  the  death  of  her  !  "  says  the  boy,  with  an 
angry  smile,  shaking  his  fist  in  the  direction  of  the  sport- 
ive Sarah. 

But  apparently  the  latter's  ears  are  nearly  as  long  as 
those  of  the  objects  of  her  chase. 

"  Whom  will  you  be  the  death  of  ?  "  she  cries,  desist- 
ing suddenly.  "  The  mischief  is  in  the  pig  !  I  can  not 
catch  it ;  and  I  am  sure  I  do  not  know  what  I  should 
have  done  with  it  if  I  had  !  Well,"  having  by  this  time 
come  up  to  them  again,  "of  whom  will  you  be  the 
death  ?  " 

"  Of  you,"  replies  the  young  fellow  stoutly,  though 
in  his  heart  he  is  a  little  scared  at  the  unexpected  distance 
to  which  his  threat  has  carried.  "Yes,  of  you,"  looking 
full  at  her  with  his  straightforward,  handsome,  angry 
eyes  ;  "  at  least,  if  I  am  not  the  death  of  you,  as  I  should 
like  to  be,  I  will  be  even  with  you  some  fine  day — see  if 
I  am  not !  " 

She  looks  back  at  him,  coolly  pondering,  but  does  not 
answer.  A  flash  of  almost  compassionate  astonishment 
is  darting  across  her  mind  that  any  man  in  the  possession 
of  sight,  health,  and  vigor — any  man,  more  especially  at 
the  most  inflammable  of  all  ages,  can  look  at  her  with 
the  un simulated  indifference,  slightly  colored  with  dis- 
like, that  this  Rivers  is  doing  !  At  once  he  rises  in  her 
esteem.  Turning  away,  she  walks  thoughtfully  back  to 
the  pigs. 


38  BELINDA. 


By-and-by,  as  through  the  long,  light  evening  the 
girls  bowl  smoothly  homeward,  before  the  shy  white  stars 
look  out,  Sarah  suddenly  breaks  the  silence  that,  for  sev- 
eral quiet  miles,  has  lain  upon  both. 

"  Belinda  !  "  she  says  abruptly  ;  "  by  all  laws,  human 
and  divine,  that  bouquet  was  yours  !  The  gardenias  are 
now  the  color  of  old  leather,  and  smell  rather  nastily  than 
otherwise  ;  but,  such  as  they  are,  they  are  yours  ! " 

And  even  on  these  terms,  poor  Belinda  is  glad  and 
thankful  to  have  her  nosegay  again  ! 


CHAPTER  Y. 

"  He  knew  whose  gentle  hand  was  at  the  latch 
Before  the  door  had  given  her  to  his  eyes ; 

And  from  her  chamber-window  he  would  catch 
Her  beauty  farther  than  the  falcon  spies. 

And  constant  as  her  vespers  would  he  watch, 
Because  her  face  was  turned  to  the  same  skies ; 

And  with  sick  longing  all  the  night  outwear 

To  hear  her  morning  step  upon  the  stair." 

UPON  the  fair  town  of  Dresden  a  new  morning  has 
opened — opened  in  sunshine,  joy,  and  lusty  growth. 
For  one  blossom-bunch  that  swung  fragilely  on  the  pear- 
tree  yesterday,  there  are  twenty  to-day.  The  slow  small 
leaves  are  beginning  to  break  less  timorously  from  their 
outgrown  sheaths. 

I  do  not  suppose  that  Belinda  can  have  grown  in  the 
night  ;  but  about  her,  too,  this  morning  there  is  a  look  of 
expansion  and  spring  :  as  if  she  too  were  uncurling  her 
leaves  and  disclosing  her  shy  buds  to  her  sun. 

The  two  girls  are  sitting  together  in  the  pretty  be- 
hyacinthed,  be-china'd,  Anglicized  salon  that  looks  to  the 


BELINDA.  39 


street.  The  morning  sun  does  not  shine  on  that  side  of 
the  house,  and  it  makes  the  room  dark  ;  but  so  it  is,  that 
all  the  blinds  are  drawn  to  the  bottom  ;  nor  does  either, 
as  would  seem  natural,  make  any  attempt  to  pull  them  up 
again. 

"  So  you  never  did  it  after  all  yesterday  ?  "  Belinda 
is  saying  in  a  tone  of  disapproving  surprise. 

Sarah  shakes  her  head. 

"  No  ;  Love's  chain  still  binds  us  !  "  she  answers,  mak- 
ing a  face. 

"  You  will  do  it  to-day  ?  " 

"No!" 

"To-morrow?" 

"I  think  not." 

"The  day  after?" 

"  It  is  improbable." 

"If  you  are  waiting,"  says  Belinda,  stopping  in  mid- 
row  of  the  stocking  she  is  knitting  to  look  severely  at  her 
sister,  and  speaking  with  an  extremely  clear  and  decided 
accent,  "  for  me  to  do  it  for  you,  you  will  wait,  as  I  told 
you  yesterday,  a  very  long  time." 

"  I  am  aware  of  it,"  replies  Sarah  calmly.  "  Since  I 
realized  that  you  are  engaged  in  a  little  pursuit  of  your 
own,  I  have  abandoned  the  idea  ! " 

"  Pursuit  ! "  cries  Belinda,  with  a  shocked  start,  and 
crimsoning.  "  You  are  the  first  person  who  ever  dared 
to  say  that  I  pursued  any  one  !  " 

"  You  would  have  been  much  pleasanter  if  you  had," 
rejoins  Sarah  coolly.  "  Well,  do  not  let  us  quarrel  over 
a  word  !  I  did  not  say  what  part  you  took  in  the  pursuit 
— whether  you  were  the  hunter,  or  the  hare  !  " 

.  But  Belinda  has  stooped  her  angry,  blonde  head  over 
her  stocking,  and  is  speechlessly  knitting  her  resentment 
into  it. 

"After  all,"  says    Sarah,  discourteously  jerking  the 


40  BELINDA. 


slumbering  pug  off  the  sofa,  and  throwing  herself  down 
on  it,  "it  is  very  unselfish  of  me  ;  nobody  gives  me  the 
credit  for  any  virtues,  but  in  point  of  fact  it  is  almost  en- 
tirely in  your  interest  that  I  am  acting ! "  She  pauses 
for  a  moment,  expecting  to  be  asked  for  an  explanation, 
but  Belinda  deigns  no  syllable.  "  Supposing  that  I  did 
give  my  Solomon  the  sack — by-the-by,  what  a  neat  allit- 
eration !  Swinburne  might  have  made  it,"  continues 
Sarah  yawning — "  what  would  become  of  me  during  all 
those  rural  excursions  that  I  see  stretching  ahead  of  us  in 
long  perspective  ?  We  could  not  let  you  and  young 
Rivers  set  off  upon  them  t&e-a-t&e — we  really  could  not  ! 
It  would  pass  even  Granny's  and  my  latitude  !  I  search 
the  horizon  in  vain  for  a  sail ! — I  mean  for  any  one  else 
to  pair  off  with  !  My  life  would  be  spent  in  trying  to 
look  the  other  way,  and  in  intercepting  fond  glances  that 
were  not  meant  for  me  !  " 

"  And  so,"  says  Belinda,  lifting  a  head  whose  cheeks 
still  blaze,  and  speaking  in  a  withering  voice,  "  and  so  he 
is  to  wriggle  on  the  hook  a  little  longer  ?  How  much 
longer,  pray  ?  " 

"  How  much  longer  ?  "  repeats  Sarah,  with  a  malicious 
look  ;  "  why,  you  can  answer  that  better  than  I !  As 
long  as  young  Rivers  wriggles  on  yours  ! " 

Belinda  winces. 

Who — high-strung  and  palpitating  in  young  love's 
first  ecstasy — would  not  wince  at  such  a  phrase  ? 

"  Come,  now,"  says  Sarah,  sliding  off  the  sofa  again, 
assuming  her  cajoling  voice,  and  sitting  down  on  the  par- 
quet at  her  sister's  feet,  "  tell  me  a  little  about  him  !  I 
have  confided  to  you  so  many  touching  traits  about  my 
beloved,  and  if  you  are  good  I  will  tell  you  plenty  more  ; 
but  confidence  should  be  reciprocal :  what  is  he  doing 
here  ?  Why  has  he  come  to  Dresden  ?  " 

"  He  is  learning  German,"  replies  Belinda  reluctantly. 


BELINDA.  41 


"  H'm  !     I  wonder  how  much  he  has  learned  ?  "  with  a 

dry  laugh. 

"  *  His  only  books  were  woman's  looks, 
And  folly  what  they  taught  him.' " 

Belinda's  sole  response  to  this  pleasantry  is  to  push 
her  chair  back  very  decidedly,  and  isolate  her  sister  on 
the  floor. 

"  What  does  he  do  when  he  is  at  home  ?  "  continues 
Sarah,  taking  no  notice  of  this  evidence  of  displeasure, 
and  obstinately  pursuing  her  catechism. 

"  He  has  just  left  Oxbridge,"  rather  sulkily. 

"  Where,  no  doubt,  he  took  several  Double  Firsts  !  " 
with  an  ironical  smile. 

"  He  rowed  stroke  in  the  University  Eight  last  year," 
very  precipitately,  and  reddening  under  this  fleer. 

"  Is  he  his  own  father,  or  has  he  a  father  ?  " 

"He  has  a  father." 

"And  what  is  the  father — what  does  the  father  do ? " 

"  I  believe — he  is  in  business,"  grudgingly. 

"  In  business  ?  "  with  raised  eyebrows,  and  an  accent 
of  surprise  and  dissatisfaction.  "  Well,"  more  cheerfully, 
"  there  is  business  and  business  !  Have  you  any  idea  what 
sort  of  business  it  is  ?  " 

"Not  the  slightest,"  very  curtly. 

"  It  is  a  liberal  age,"  says  Sarah  philosophically,  "  but 
one  must  draw  the  line  somewhere.  I  draw  the  line  at 
artificial  manure  !  Come,  now,  have  you  any  reason  for 
supposing  that  it  is  artificial  manure  ?  " 

Belinda  laughs  a  little,  but  most  unwillingly. 

"  I  dare  say  it  is.     I  never  asked." 

"  Do  you  remember,"  says  Sarah,  "  the  little  French- 
man', covered  with  orders — Legions  of  Honor  and  Saint 
Esprits  by  the  gross — that  we  met  at  the  ball  at  Cannes, 
who  told  me  that  he  was  '  dans  le  commerce?  and  when  I 
inquired  what  branch,  and  suggested  that  perhaps  he  was 


42  BELINDA. 


'dans  les  v ins  f  answered  grandiosely,  'Nbn,  mademoi- 
selle ;  je  suis  dans  les  bougies  ! ' " 

A  pause. 

The  pug  lias  arisen  from  the  cold  parquet,  and  with 
her  tail  still  half-mast  high  in  the  enervation  of  slumber, 
has  stepped  delicately  on  to  Sarah,  and  cast  herself  with 
a  deep,  slow  sigh  upon  her  warm  lap. 

"  Your  friend  does  not  look  as  if  he  were  '  dans  les 
bougies ,' "  says  Sarah  presently,  with  an  air  of  thought- 
ful generosity  ;  "  still  less  dans  le I  declare  I  da  not 

know  what  is  the  French  for  artificial  manure  !  How 
Granny  has  neglected  our  educations  ! " 

But  Belinda  is  not  attending.  Belinda's  head  is  raised, 
and  upon  her  face  has  come  a  look  of  blissful  listening. 
Her  fine  ear  has  detected  a  footfall  in  the  anteroom  out- 
side— a  footfall  that  not  even  Slutty,  the  pug,  has  yet 
suspected — a  step  that  she  has  discriminated  from  that  of 
the  flat-foot  Gustel. 

"  It  is  you,  is  it  ?  "  says  Sarah,  in  a  not  particularly  ex- 
hilarating voice,  scrambling  to  her  feet  as  Rivers,  ushered 
in  by  an  infant  English  page,  who  divides  the  cares  of  the 
manage  with  Gustel,  enters. 

She  gives  him  two  contemptuous  fingers. 

Of  what  use  to  give  more  to  a  man  who  holds  them 
as  if  they  were  a  bundle  of  sticks?  She  might  have 
given  him  ten,  or  twenty,  or  none,  for  all  he  knows. 
His  eyes  have  strayed  away  over  her,  to  him,  totally 
irrelevant  head,  and  have  fastened  on  his  mistress,  ask- 
ing eagerly  if  this  can  indeed  be  she,  alive  and  real, 
whom  all  night  long  he  has  pursued  through  his  radiant 
dreams. 

"Perhaps  you  can  help  us,"  says  Sarah,  with  an -inno- 
cent look.  "We  have  just  been  wondering  what  the 
French  for  artificial  manure  is  ?  " 

He  does  not  hear.     Belinda's  hand  in  his  is  making 


BELINDA.  43 


summer  in  his  veins,  and  his  happy  eyes  are  drowned  in 
hers  as  happy.  But  Belinda  hears. 

"  Sarah  is  speaking  to  you  !  "  she  says,  low  and  hur- 
riedly. 

He  turns  round  reluctantly  with  a  start. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  !  I — I— did  not  quite  catch  what 
you  were  saying." 

"  I  was  only  asking  you  if  you  knew  the  French  for 
artificial  manure  ?  "  she  answers  demurely. 

"  For  artificial  manure  !  "  repeats  he,  astounded.  "  Of 
course  I  do  not !  Why  should  I  ?  Why  do  you  want  to 
know  what  is  the  French  for  artificial  manure  ?  Is  it  a 
riddle?" 

Even  for  his  explanation  he  has  turned  again  to  Be- 
linda, as  inevitably  as  the  sunflower  to  the  sun. 

"  We  were  only  talking  of — of — agriculture  ;  were 
not  we,  Belinda  ?  "  replies  the  other,  smiling  malevolently 
at  her  sister's  obvious,  and  to  Rivers  incomprehensible, 
discomfiture. 

That  his  Egeria  could  look  foolish,  as  she  is  indis- 
putably doing,  would  never,  indeed,  occur  to  him  ;  but 
nothing  short  of  total  blindness  could  prevent  his  seeing 
the  sudden  cascade  of  scarlet  which  has  poured  over  her. 
For  one  instant,  indeed,  the  blest  idea  has  darted  across 
his  mind  that  this  lovely  flag  may  be  hung  out  for  him  ; 
but  his  humility — for  real  love  is  ever  most  humble— at 
once  dismisses  the  scarcely  formed  thought  as  too  good 
to  be  true. 

Perhaps  it  is  his  scrutiny,  silent  and  intense,  that  em- 
barrasses her.  Of  course  he  ought  to  say  something. 
On  a  morning  visit  one  must  say  something. 

"  Why  are  you  sitting  in  the  dark  ?  "  he  asks,  glanc- 
ing at  the  carefully  drawn-down  blinds.  "The  sun  is 
not  on  this  side  of  the  house,  and  there  is  no  glare  any- 
where to-day ! " 


44  BELINDA. 


"It  is  very  gloomy,  is  not  it?"  replies  Belinda,  who 
is  slowly  recovering  her  countenance  ;  "  and  we  are  so 
fond  of  light  and  air,  too.  But  it  can  not  be  helped  ; 
we  are  obliged  to  have  them  down  because  of  Miss  Wat- 
son." 

"  Because  of  Miss  Watson  ?    I  do  not  understand." 

"  She  lives  on  the  other  side  of  the  street,  a  little  far- 
ther down,  and  she  has  lately  set  up  a  spy-glass  or  tele- 
scope of  some  kind  in  her  window,  with  which  she  rakes 
us  fore  and  aft.  She  told  us  triumphantly  on  Tuesday 
that  she  could  see  everything  we  did  !  I  believe  that 
she  can  tell  by  the  movement  of  our  lips  what  we  are 
saying  ! " 

"  If  I  thought  so,"  said  Sarah  viciously,  "  what  things 
I  would  say  about  her  !  " 

"  It  will  end  in  our  being  forced  to  leave  the  apart- 
ment," says  Belinda,  with  a  shrug.  "  A  friend  of  ours 
was.  She  has  now  taken  one  that  looks  upon  a  blank 
wall  as  being  her  only  real  security." 

"  Miss  Watson  combines  all  the  worst  qualities  of  the 
gnat  and  the  rhinoceros,"  says  Sarah  gravely  ;  "  but  I 
think  har  most  offensive  trait — though,  indeed,  among  so 
many  it  is  invidious  to  give  the  preference  to  any  one — 
is  her  continual  persecution  of  us  to  go  on  expeditions 
with  her." 

"  Then  I  am  afraid  that  you  will  look  upon  me  as  a 
second  Miss  Watson,"  says  Rivers  bluntly,  and  coloring, 
as  he  delivers  himself  with  untold  difficulty  of  his  simple 
errand  ;  "  for  that  is  exactly  what  I  came  here  this  morn- 
ing to  do  ! " 

"Another  expedition  ?  "  cries  Sarah,  in  a  tone  of  any- 
thing but  gratification.  "  Why,  it  seems  as  if  we  had 
not  been  back  five  minutes  from  the  last !  " 

"It  would  evidently  be  an  empty  civility  to  ask 
whether  you  enjoyed  it ! "  says  Rivers,  with  a  rather 


BELINDA.  45 


mortified  laugh.  "And  you?" — the  sunflower  turning 
again  greedily  to  its  sun. 

"  I  was  not  bored,"  answers  Belinda  in  a  constrained 
voice.  "  I  enjoy  expeditions  !  I  like  Moritzburg." 

This  is  all  that  she  has  to  say  about  the  hours  that 
had  made  him  sick  with  desire  in  anticipation,  stammer- 
ing with  bliss  in  fruition,  drunk  with  joy  in  retrospect ! 

He  looks  at  her  with  an  intense  wistfulness  that  is 
almost  incredulity  ;  but  she  gives  him  back  no  glance. 
How  can  she,  knowing,  as  she  does  by  long  experience, 
that  Sarah  has  eyes  in  the  back  of  her  head  ?  Sarah,  who 
is  ostensibly,  and  as  he  in  the  innocence  of  his  heart  be- 
lieves really,  entirely  absorbed  in  making  Slutty  miser- 
able, by  affecting  to  suppose  that  she  looks  faint  and 
holding  smelling-salts  to  her  outraged  nose. 

"I  thought,"  he  says  in  a  chapf alien  voice,  "that  it 
would  not  be  a  bad  day  for  Wesenstein  ;  or,  if  you  liked 
that  better,  Tharandt." 

"You  really  must  be  related  to  Miss  Watson  !"  cries 
Sarah,  bursting  out  laughing.  "  Wesenstein  !  Tharandt ! 
Those  are  her  two  chevaux  de  bataille.  If  we  do  not  go 
to  Wesenstein  we  must  go  to  Tharandt ;  and  if  we  do 
not  go  to  Tharandt  we  must  go  to  Wesenstein !  Good 
heavens  ! "  suddenly  stopping  in  mid-laugh  ;  "  Unberu- 
fen !  I  hear  her  on  the  stairs  !  Hers  is  the  only  voice 
that  one  can  hear  through  the  double  doors." 

"  She  has  come  to  make  us  go  to  Wesenstein  with 
her  !  "  says  Belinda  in  a  low  key  of  consternation. 

"  It  is  the  finger  of  Providence  ! "  cries  Sarah,  resum- 
ing her  merriment.  "Mr.  Rivers,  you  want  to  go  to 
Wesenstein.  She  wants  to  go  to  Wesenstein  !  Why 
should  not  you  go  together  ?  I  will  arrange  it  for  you  ! " 

"  If  you  do,"  says  the  young  man,  stepping  threaten- 
ingly toward  her,  and  speaking  in  a  tone  of  the  most 
genuine  alarm  and  exasperation,  "  I'll — " 


46  BELINDA. 


"  You  will  be  the  death  of  me  ! "  interrupts  Sarah 
pertly,  finishing  his  sentence  for  him.  "I  know.  So 
you  said  yesterday.  I  wish  you  would  invent  a  new 
threat." 

For  a  moment  they  all  listen  silently. 

"  I  believe  it  was  a  false  alarm,"  says  Belinda,  draw- 
ing a  long  breath. 

"  No,  it  was  not ! "  rejoins  Sarah,  shaking  her  head. 
"  There  is  no  mistaking  that  bison's  voice.  She  is  only 
stopping  on  the  stairs  to  ask  Tommy  what  wages  he  has, 
and  whether  Granny  gives  him  enough  to  eat ! " 


CHAPTER  VI. 

IT  is  too  true.  While  the  words  are  yet  in  Sarah's 
mouth,  the  door  opens  and  admits  the  red  face,  the  griz- 
zled fringe,  and  the  black  and  white  plaid  gown  that  they 
have  all  been  apprehensively  expecting. 

"Any  admittance?"  cries  the  burly  voice,  as  the 
owner  enters  without  awaiting  an  answer  to  her  question. 
"All  alive  and  well?" 

"  We  are  all  alive,"  replies  Sarah  gloomily,  giving  a 
hand  ten  degrees  limper  even  than  that  one  which  she 
had  vouchsafed  to  Rivers.  "  As  to  being  well — " 

"  Why  are  you  all  sitting  in  the  dark  ?  Why  are  all 
your  blinds  down  ? "  interrupts  the  other  breathlessly, 
unable  any  longer  to  contain  the  curiosity  with  which  she 
has  been  bursting  all  the  way  up  the  long  stone  stairs. 

There  is  a  moment  of  stupefied  silence,  as  the  convic- 
tion flashes  coldly  on  all  their  minds  that  they  have  over- 
reached themselves. 

"  I  happened  to  look  up  as  I  was  passing,"  continues 
Miss  Watson  inquisitively,  "  and  saw  that  the  blinds  were 


BELINDA.  47 


all  drawn  down.  I  thought  that  of  course  I  had  better 
inquire  the  reason  at  once  ;  but  I  could  not  get  any  satis- 
factory answer  out  of  your  page-boy — Tommy  he  tells 
me  his  name  is.  I  had  a  little  talk  with  him  on  the  stairs 
coming  up  ;  he  does  not  seem  a  very  intelligent  boy — 
Tommy— does  he  ?  " 

"  We  had  him  cheaper  by  getting  him  out  of  an  idiot 
asylum,"  replies  Sarah  gravely ;  and  Rivers,  moonstruck 
as  he  is,  explodes. 

"  Grandmamma  quite  well  ?  " 

"Do  you  think  that  she  is  dead,  and  that  that  is 
why  we  have  the  blinds  down  ? "  says  Sarah  ironically. 
"  Thanks,  she  is  quite  well,  but  she  is  not  up  yet.  You 
see  it  is  a  little  early  !  " 

At  this  side-stroke  Rivers  winces.  Does  not  it  apply 
equally  to  him  ?  But  upon  the  object  at  whom  it  is  aimed 
it  is  absolutely  wasted. 

"  No  bad  news  from  England,  eh  ?  " 

"Thanks,  no!" 

"I  was  afraid"  —  her  eyes  wandering  inquisitively 
round — "  by  seeing  the  blinds  down,  that  you  might  have 
heard  of  the  loss  of  a  relation.  No  ?  Well,  then,  why 
are  they  all  down  ?  " 

There  is  a  moment's  silence.  What  question  can  be 
easier,  and  yet  more  difficult,  to  answer  ?  At  last : 

"  There  is  no  reason  why  they  should  not  be  pulled  up 
now?"  says  Sarah  dryly.  "Mr.  Rivers,  up  with  the 
blinds!" 

Mr.  Rivers  obeys.  The  houses  on  the  other  side  of 
the  street  again  come  into  sight,  and  the  gloom  flies. 

"  I  am  so  glad  of  this  opportunity  to  make  your  ac- 
quaintance, Mr.  Rivers  !  "  says  Miss  Watson,  following 
him  to  the  window,  and  cordially  extending  her  large 
hand.  "  As  soon  as  I  heard  your  name  I  longed  to  ask 
you  what  Rivers  you  are  ?  I  know  so  many  Rivers.  I 


48  BELINDA. 


am  sure  that  I  must  know  all  your  people  !  What  Rivers 
are  you  ?  " 

The  young  man  has  turned,  the  blind-cord  still  in  his 
hand,  toward  her.  His  face  has  grown  nearly  as  red  as 
hers,  albeit  the  red  is  of  a  different  quality. 

"  That  is  a  rather  posing  question,  is  not  it  ?  "  he  says, 
with  a  confused  laugh,  the  Englishman's  difficulty  in  dis- 
cussing himself  being,  in  his  case,  intensified  a  hundred- 
fold by  the  consciousness  that  Belinda  is  eagerly  listen- 
ing ;  "  how  can  I  describe  myself  ?  " 

"All  the  rivers  run  into  the  sea,  but  the  sea  is  not 
full ! "  says  Sarah  flippantly  ;  and  Rivers  looks  vexed. 

There  is  not  one  among  us,  however  wise  and  good 
and  humble,  who  does  not  detest  a  joke  upon  his  own 
name. 

"  I  know  Lord  Rivers,"  continued  Miss  Watson,  fixing 
him  with  her  inexorable  eye.  "  At  least  I  may  really  say 
that  I  virtually  know  him  ;  we  were  at  the  same  hotel  at 
Cairo  for  two  nights  together  ;  and  though  we  never  ex- 
actly met,  as  he  did  not  dine  at  the  table,  tfhdte,  yet  there 
is  a  sort  of  freemasonry  in  being  at  the  same  hotel !  How 
is  Lord  Rivers  ?  is  he  quite  well  ?  Is  there  any  chance 
of  his  coming  here  ?  " 

"  I  have  not  the  slightest  idea ! "  replied  Rivers 
bluntly.  "He  is  not  the  most  distant  connection  of 
mine  ! " 

"  Ah  !  then  " — with  a  look  of  enlightenment — "  you 
are  one  of  the  other  Rivers  ;  one  of  the  Stukeley  Rivers 
— Sir  Edward  Rivera's  family.  Now  do  tell  me,  which  of 
the  brothers  are  you  ?  "  I  am  always  so  puzzled  among 
them !  Are  you  Humphrey  ?  or  Randulphus  ?  or  a 
younger  one  still  ?  " 

"I  am  neither  Humphrey,  nor  Randulphus,  nor  a 
younger  one  still ! "  answers  Rivers,  sulkily,  his  usually 
amiable  and  always  beautiful  boy's  face  beginning  to  look 


BELINDA.  49 


rather  dangerous  under  this  continued  baiting.  "I  am 
not  related  to  Sir  Edward  Rivers,  and  I  never  heard  of 
Stukeley ! " 

"  Then  I  declare  that  I  am  quite  at  a  loss  ! "  says  she, 
baffled. 

But  as  her  eye  shows  no  sign  of  releasing  him,  as  she 
is  evidently  bent  upon  extracting  from  him  a  response  of 
some  kind,  he  has  to  make  what  shift  he  can  to  answer 
her. 

"  I  am  sure  I  do  not  know  what  Rivers  we  are  !  "  he 
says,  in  a  shy,  fierce  voice,  looking  out  of  the  window  as 
if  with  some  vague  idea  of  escape  by  it.  "  There  are  a 
good  many  of  us,  and  we  live  in  Yorkshire  ;  and  my  father 
is  in  business  !  " 

As  the  back  of  his  head  is  turned  to  the  room,  and 
as,  unlike  Sarah,  he  has  no  eyes  in  it,  perhaps  she  is  justi- 
fied in  putting  up  one  hand  as  a  speaking-trumpet  to  her 
lips,  and  noiselessly  mouthing  through  it  for  her  sister's 
benefit  the  syllables,  "  Ar-ti-fi-ci-al  ma-nure  !  "  At  all 
events,  this  is  what  she  does. 

"  She  is  really  gone  !  "  says  Sarah,  turning  away  from 
the  window  half  an  hour  later,  after  a  cautious  recon- 
noitre, and  drawing  a  long  breath.  "Mercifully,  the 
Greenes  were  passing,  and  she  fell  upon  them  from  be- 
hind, so  that  they  could  not  escape  her.  Generally  she 
has  a  way  of  pretending  to  have  forgotten  her  umbrella, 
and  coming  back  to  hear  what  one  is  saying  of  her." 

"  I  wonder  she  has  not  been  cured  of  that  before  now," 
says  Belinda  gravely,  "  as  she  never  can  have  heard  any 
good." 

"It  is  the  triumph  of  hope  over  experience  !  "  rejoins 
Sarah.  "Well,"  with  a  gay  look  at  Rivers,  "at  least  it 
is  a  comfort  to  think  that  she  has  at  last  found  out  con* 
clusively  what  Rivers  you  are  ! " 


50  BELINDA. 


"  Or,  rather,  what  Rivers  I  am  not,"  replies  he  dryly  ; 
"  it  is  not  quite  the  same  thing." 

"  To  be  neither  Humphrey  nor  Randulphus  ! "  says 
Belinda,  with  a  happy,  shy,  rallying  smile  ;  "  how  sad  !  " 

"I  wonder,  now,  what  your  Christian  name  really 
is?"  says  Sarah.  "Come  out,  Slutty ;  she  is  gone! 
Slutty  always  crawls  under  this  bureau  when  Miss  Wat- 
son calls  ;  she  hates  her  so  !  I  have  tried  to  teach  her  to 
bite  her  leg,  but  she  will  not  go  so  far  as  that.  Yes,  now, 
what  is  your  Christian  name  ?  " 

"What  should  you  think?"  he  asks,  joyously,  his 
heart  leaping  wildly  at  that  small  coy  smile  which  his 
dear  lady  has  just  spared  him.  "What  do  I  look 
like?" 

" You  might  be  Arthur"  replies  Sarah,  sitting  down 
with  Slutty  in  her  lap,  and  looking  him  over  well  and 
thoroughly ;  "  there  is  no  reason  why  you  should  not  be 
Reginald ;  and  I  have  heard  of  more  unlikely  things  than 
your  being  Guy  I " 

"  Wrong  !  grossly  wrong  ! "  replies  he,  enduring  her 
scrutiny  with  the  most  perfect  sang-froid,  and,  indeed, 
giving  her  back  her  cool  hardy  look.  "  I  never  heard  a 
worse  shot !  And  you — what  do  you  think  ?  "  his  tone 
growing  suddenly  reverent,  and  his  bold  eyes  veiled  and 
shy. 

"  You  shall  give  me  only  one  guess  ! "  she  answers 
merrily.  "  I  say — Da v id  !  " 

"Itavidf"  repeats  Sarah  scornfully.  "How  likely! 
Try  Goliath  at  once  !  " 

But  Rivers,  in  an  ecstasy  of  pleasure  at  his  love's  in- 
tuition, is  crying  out : 

"How  did  you  know?  How  did  you  find  out?  I 
never  told  you  !  " 

"  Was  not  it  a  good  guess  ?  "  she  says,  with  a  demure 
smile.  "Ko  ;  it  was  not  a  guess  ;  I  read  it — you  know 


BELINDA.  51 


you  sat  before  us  last  Sunday — in  the  fly-leaf  of  your 
Prayer-book  in  church  !  " 

She  blushes  faintly  as  a  China  rose  at  this  admission 
of  how  her  thoughts  and  eyes  had  stolen  away  from  praise 
and  supplication  to  spell  out  his  name. 

"David/"  repeats  Sarah,  in  an  extremely  dubious 
voice.  "H'm!" 

"  It  is  a  family  name  among  us,"  he  adds  in  explana- 
tion ;  "  among  my  mother's  people,  that  is." 

There  is  a  moment's  silence.  For  the  first  and  only 
time  in  her  life  Sarah  wishes  for  Miss  Watson  back  again, 
to  ascertain,  as  she  undoubtedly  would  by  direct  inquiry, 
who  and  what  his  mother's  people  are.  But  as  she  her- 
self does  not  feel  quite  equal  to  the  task,  the  fact  remains 
wrapped  in  as  much  mystery  as  does  the  nature  of  his 
father's  commercial  operations. 

"  Well,  I  suppose,"  says,  the  young  man,  sighing 
heavily,  and  gently  and  reluctantly  setting  down  Slutty 
(Slutty  loves  him  ;  he  has  mastered  the  exact  spot  in  her 
back  which  demands  delicate  and  perennial  scratching. 
She  has  forsaken  Sarah  to  jump  up  on  his  lap,  though 
she  has  in  general  but  a  poor  opinion  of  men's  laps,  as 
cold  and  hollow  pretenses) — "I  suppose  I  must  be  go- 
ing. I  am  afraid  that  you  have  already  had  too  much  of 
me!" 

He  pauses,  with  a  wistful  look  toward  Belinda's  bent 
and  shining  head,  but  neither  girl  contradicts  him :  the 
one  because  she  so  cordially  agrees  with  him  ;  the  other 
because  she  so  passionately  dissents.  He  moves  unwill- 
ingly to  the  door,  but  there  halts  again.  "And — and 
Wesenstein  ?  "  he  says  desperately. 

"What  about  it?"  cries  Sarah  peevishly.  "Did  not 
you  hear  us  calling  all  our  gods  to  witness  to  Miss  Wat- 
son that  we  were  so  broken  with  fatigue  since  Moritzburg 
that  we  could  scarcely  lift  a  finger  ?  " 


52  BELINDA. 


" I  heard  you"  he  answers  bluntly,  laying  a  signifi- 
cant stress  upon  the  pronoun. 

"Now  I  warn  you,"  says  she,  holding  up  her  fore- 
finger threateningly  at  him,  "  that  if  you  mention  Wesen- 
stein  again,  I  shall  stop  my  ears." 

"  There  are  other  places  besides  Wesenstein,"  returns 
he,  pertinaciously  ;  something  about  Belinda — not  any- 
thing she  has  said  certainly,  for  she  has  said  nothing — 
but  possibly  the  unnatural  fury  with  which  she  is  knitting, 
encouraging  him  to  persevere. 

"  Of  course  ! "  very  snappishly  ;  "  Tharandt !  " 

"  No,  not  Tharandt ;  there  are  other  places  besides 
Tharandt.  Loch  Miihle,  for  instance  ;  have  you  ever 
seen  Loch  Muhle?" 

"  Never ! "  very  crossly  ;  "  and  I  humbly  hope  that  I 
never  shall.  Why  should  we  go  anywhere?"  pursues 
she,  burying  her  ill-humored  face  in  the  sofa-cushion  ; 
"leave  me,  leave  me  to  repose.  I  have  not  the  faintest 
wish  to  go  anywhere." 

"  And  you  never  do  anything  but  what  you  wish  your- 
self ?"  asks  Rivers  snubbingly,  eying  with  extreme  dis- 
favor her  petulant  prettiness.  To  him  she  does  not  appear 
in  the  least  pretty. 

"  Never,  if  I  can  help  it ! "  replies  she,  raising  her 
head,  surprised  and  languidly  titillated  by  his  tone,  which 
is  not  what  she  had  expected  in  him.  "  Do  you  ?  " 

He  laughs  dryly. 

"  Never,  if  I  can  help  it ;  but  in  a  large  family  one 
can  not  help  it." 

"  In  a  large  family,"  repeats  she.  "  You  are  one  of  a 
large  family  ?  " 

"  It  depends  upon  what  you  call  large  ;  there  are  six 
of  us." 

"  Five  too  many,"  rejoins  she  promptly.  "  And  where 
do  you  come — third — fourth  ?  " 


BELINDA.  53 


« I  come  first." 

"  Are  you  taking  a  leaf  out  of  Miss  Watson's  book  ?  " 
asks  Belinda  severely,  joining  in  the  dialogue  for  the  first 
time. 

"  I  think  I  am,"  replies  the  other  composedly. 

"  Well,  then,  we  will  make  a  bargain  :  I  will  ask  you 
no  more  questions  if  you  will  promise  to  invite  me  to  go 
on  no  more  expeditions  ;  there  ! " 

So  saying,  she  reburies  her  head  in  the  pillows ;  and 
as  she  totally  declines  to  raise  it  again,  and  as  neither 
does  Belinda  add  another  syllable,  he  is  at  length  obliged 
to  withdraw  defeated. 

For  a  moment  after  he  has  disappeared,  Belinda  still 
knits  violently,  her  forehead  puckered,  a  warm  pink  wave 
ebbing  and  flowing  in  her  cheeks,  and  a  sharp  brush  be- 
tween love  and  pride  going  on  in  her  heart.  For  the  first 
time  in  her  life  pride  goes  to  the  wall.  She  tosses  down 
her  stocking  and  springs  to  the  door. 

"  Mr.  Rivers  !  "  she  calls  tremblingly  ;  "  Mr.  Rivers  !  " 

He  must  have  walked  very  slowly,  for  he  has  only 
just  reached  the  double  doors  of  egress. 

"  Yes,"  he  answers  pantingly  ;  "  yes  ?  " 

"  It  is  nothing,"  she  says,  faltering  into  deep  shyness 
again,  and  quivering  under  the  fervent  expectancy  of  his 
look.  "  I  only  wanted  to  tell  you  that — that  it  is  not  my 
fault  ;  that,  for  my  part,  I  should  have  liked  to  go  to 
Loch  Mtihle." 

"  Then  why  in  Heaven's  name  could  not  you  say  so 
sooner  ?  "  asks  Sarah,  whose  long  ears  have  again  served 
her  faithfully,  pouncing  out  upon  them.  "  I  am  sorry 
that  his  name  is  David"  she  says  reflectively,  a  little 
later,  when  he  has  gone,  jubilant  now,  to  arrange  the  ex- 
cursion. "I  am  afraid  it  looks  ill  ;  the  poor  people  are 
so  fond  of  Scripture  names." 


54:  BELINDA. 


A  high  sun,  hot  and  benign  ;  a  west  wind,  sweet  with 
last  night's  rain  ;  myriads  and  myriads  of  blossomed 
fruit-trees  ;  villages  that  seem  built  of  and  buried  in 
snow  ;  enormous  bunches  of  pear-blossoms,  that  look  as 
if  the  boughs  must  break  under  their  weight ;  the  ways 
all  white  with  arches  of  cherry-bloom ;  the  horses  trot- 
ting over  a  carpet  of  strewn  cherry-petals,  as  at  some  high 
wedding  pomp  ;  and  a  seat  opposite  Belinda,  who  has 
allowed  him  to  open  her  parasol  for  her.  Is  it  any  won- 
der that  Rivers  has  forgotten  that  it  is  near  three  o'clock, 
and  that  at  an  hour  at  which  most  people  are  full,  he  and 
his  company  are  still  fasting  ?  But  they  have  not  for- 
gotten. For  the  last  mile  and  a  half  he  has  been  pelted 
by  an  ever  sharper  shower  of  anxious  and  peevish  ques- 
tions as  to  whether  the  Kutscher  knows  the  road ;  as  to 
whether  they  have  still  a  mile,  two  miles,  half  a  mile  to 
go  ;  as  to  whether  he  is  sure  that  there  is  a  Gast-hof  ;  as 
to  whether,  lastly  and  desperately  this,  he  is  certain  that 
there  is  such  a  place  as  Lohmen  (it  is  at  Lohmenthat  they 
are  to  lunch)  at  all. 

"  I  suppose,"  says  the  Professor  finally,  putting  on  his 
spectacles  in  order  to  look  full  and  murderously  at  him 
through  them  (he  does  not  often  look  at  undergraduates, 
he  dislikes  them  too  much),  "  I  suppose  that  you  are  aware 
that  the  whole  responsibility  of  the  excursion  rests  with 
you?" 

"Yes,  I  am  aware,"  replies  Rivers  inattentively  and 
dreamily. 

She  has  just  deigned  to  accept  a  little  switch  from 
him — a  flowered  cherry-bough,  blossomed  to  the  end  of 
each  brown  twig — and  is  daintily  waving  away  the  au- 
dacious summer  flies  with  it. 

The  Professor  has  five  distinct  good  reasons  for  being 
cross,  and  for  most  people  one  suffices.  First,  he  did  not 
want  to  come  at  all ;  secondly,  he  has  threatening^  of  a 


BELINDA.  55 


snuffly  cold,  contracted  in  the  long  Moritzburg  grass  and 
among  the  Moritzburg  pigs,  and  probably  to  be  sensibly 
worsened  by  the  present  pleasure-trip  ;  thirdly,  he  hates 
sitting  with  his  back  to  the  horses — a  thing  which  his 
votaries  indeed  seldom  suffer  him  to  do — but  in  this  case 
there  has  been  no  suggestion  of  offering  him  a  front  seat  ; 
fourthly,  his  digestion  has  been  for  so  many  years  his 
master,  that  it  now  allows  him  with  impunity  no  least  de- 
rangement of  his  meal-times;  fifthly  and  lastly,  Sarah 
has  three  times  flagrantly  pretended  not  to  hear  him  when 
he  addressed  her,  and  has  once  crabbedly  asked  him  to 
let  her  have  a  little  more  room.  For  Sarah  is,  if  possible, 
still  crosser  than  he. 

The  low,  trivial  words  that  the  sweet  wind  carries  not 
to  her,  but  alongside  of  her  ;  the  ardent  iron-gray  eyes 
that  she  is  always  accidentally  meeting,  and  that  instantly 
lose  their  ardor  the  moment  they  encounter  hers  ;  the 
dust,  for,  despite  last  night's  rain,  there  is  dust  ;  the 
sense  of  physical  emptiness,  that  no  tickled  vanity,  no 
warmed  passions  redeem,  have  wrought  her  by  the  time 
they  at  length  alight  at  the  door  of  a  simple  but  not 
untempting-looking  Gast-hof  to  such  a  pitch  of  ill-hu- 
mor as  makes  her  betrothed's  mild  fractiousness  pale  be- 
side it. 

"  How  cross  they  are  !  "  says  Rivers,  having  for  the 
first  time  realized  this  long  sufficiently  patent  fact,  and 
looking  after  them  with  sunny  wonder,  as  the  Professor 
hastens  into  the  inn  to  order  luncheon,  eagerly  followed 
by  Sarah. 

"  And  how  greedy  !  "  adds  Belinda. 

And  having  thus  calmly  characterized  their  compan- 
ions' vices,  they  stray  away  together  down  the  little  gar- 
den path,  where  the  bloody  warriors  and  the  cat- faced 
pansies  merrily  grow  in  the  sandy  border,  and  forget 
them.  They  have  not,  however,  been  long  left  to  watch 


56  BELINDA. 


the  happy  butterflies  hover,  and  the  young  flowers  blow, 
before  a  captious  voice  overtakes  and  recalls  them. 

"  I  thought,"  cries  the  Professor  from  the  open  Gast- 
hof  door,  and  in  a  voice  whose  exasperation  is  sensibly 
sharpened  even  since  it  was  last  heard  in  querulous  in- 
quiry five  minutes  ago— "I  thought,  Mr.  Rivers,  that 
you  gave  us  to  understand  that  there  was  a  good  hotel  to 
be  found  here  ?  " 

"  And  is  not  there  ? "  answers  the  young  man  ab- 
sently. 

He  has  just  thieved  a  sweet-brier  spray,  young  and 
vernal,  and  is  making  it  fit  for  his  love's  tender  hand  by 
carefully  nipping  off  all  its  thorns. 

"  I  think,"  pursues  the  voice,  "  that  an  inn  can  hardly 
be  qualified  as  good  when  there  is  not  a  single  vegetable 
to  be  procured — not  even  a  potato  !  " 

"Of  course  it  can  not,"  replies  Rivers  serenely. 
"  Look  ! "  pointing  joyously  out  to  his  companion  a 
poised  butterfly  opening  and  shutting  its  freaky  wings 
on  a  dark  pansy  face  ;  "  does  not  he  look  jolly  ?  He  is 
the  first  tortoise-shell  I  have  seen  this  spring." 

"  And  where,"  continues  the  voice,  in  an  intenser  key 
of  resentment,  "  there  is  absolutely  nothing  of  any  kind 
to  be  obtained  except  veal." 

"  Except  veal !  "  repeats  Rivers,  rousing  himself  with 
an  effort  into  a  simulation  of  interest  ;  "  you  do  not  say 
so  !  Well,  but,"  lapsing  into  unavoidable  radiance 
again,  "  does  it  matter  much  ?  German  veal  is  always  so 
good.  I  hope,"  looking  sunnily  round,  "  that  no  one  dis- 
likes veal ! " 

There  is  a  sulky  silence,  broken  only  by  Belinda's  mur- 
muring that  she  loves  it,  and  by  the  Professor's  remark- 
ing that  all  white  meats  are  more  or  less  indigestible. 
Whether  they  like  it  or  not,  however,  further  inquiry 
only  serves  to  confirm  the  fact  that  they  must  either  re- 


BELINDA.  57 


sign  themselves  to  a  luncheon  of  kalbfleisch  and  bread 
(calf -flesh  being  the  one  universally  procurable  flesh  in 
Germany)  or  not  lunch  at  all.  Nor,  when  this  is  settled, 
does  the  calf -flesh  seem  in  any  hurry  to  appear.  By-and- 
by,  indeed,  a  leisurely  Blowsabella  of  a  serving-maid  lays 
a  coarse  clean  cloth  and  some  knives  and  forks  in  what 
she  calls  the  bavillon,  a  homely  arbor  at  the  garden  end  ; 
and  thither  the  Professor  at  once  repairs,  and  seating  him- 
self at  his  place  before  the  empty  table,  lays  his  watch 
before  him,  and  seems  to  derive  a  bitter  solace  from  count- 
ing the  numerous  moments  as  they  pass,  and  announcing 
them  by  five  at  a  time  aloud  to  Rivers.  But  Rivers  does 
not  hear. 

"  Do  not  let  us  go  near  them,"  he  says,  in  a  cajoling, 
low  voice  to  Belinda,  wiling  her  away  again  into  the  sun 
and  the  flowers  ;  "  in  their  present  frame  of  mind  it  is  not 
safe." 

"  Well,  you  know  it  is  not  the  1st  of  April,  and  you 
have  made  fools  of  us  ! "  she  answers,  a  little  dryly. 

"  Are  you  starving  ?  "  he  cries,  roused  into  sudden, 
tardy  compunction. 

The  Professor's  and  Sarah's  pangs  had  left  him  cold  as 
a  stone,  merciless  as  Herod. 

"  Famished  !  "  replies  she  ;  but  she  says  it  with  such 
a  charming  smile  of  absolute  well-being,  making  mirthful 
her  grave  lips,  that  his  misgivings  fly.  For  all  they  care, 
the  kalbfleisch  may  be  an  hour,  two  hours,  three  in  coming  ! 

It  has  been  smoking  for  a  couple  of  minutes,  indeed, 
on  the  table,  and  the  Professor  and  Sarah  have  been  seen 
greedily  to  help  themselves  before  they  think  it  worth 
while  to  draw  nigh.  When  at  length  they  do  : 

"  It  is  uneatable  ! "  says  the  Professor,  laying  down 
his  knife  and  fork  with  a  shocking  calmness,  and  regard- 
ing Rivers  as  he  approaches  in  his  infuriating,  senseless 
radiance  with  a  glassy  look  of  vengeful  despair. 


58  BELINDA. 


"  Impossible  !  "  cries  the  young  man,  hastily  helping 
himself,  and  boldly  taking  a  good  mouthful.  "  Pah  ! " 
changing  countenance  ;  "  but  it  is,  though  !  What  filth  !  " 

Nor  is  this  expression,  albeit  strong,  at  all  too  strong 
to  qualify  the  plat  now  set  before  these  hungry  persons. 
In  the  first  place  it  is  but  too  clear  that  the  kalb  has 
originally  died  a  natural  death,  and  has  afterward,  per- 
haps, in  order  to  disguise  this  slight  accident,  undergone 
every  possible  variation  of  baking,  boiling,  roasting,  stew- 
ing, frying,  seething  !  But,  after  all,  it  is  not  disguised. 

There  is  a  blank,  sulphurous  silence.  They  all  look  at 
Rivers. 

"  I  thought,"  says  the  Professor,  in  a  cutting,  small 
voice,  "  that  you  gave  us  to  understand — " 

"What  does  it  matter  what  he  gave  us  to  under- 
stand ? "  cries  Sarah,  in  a  fury,  rudely  interrupting  him. 
"  The  more  fools  we  to  believe  him  !  It  would  be  more 
to  the  purpose  if  you  or  he  or  anybody  would  give  us 
to  understand  how  we  are  to  get  back  to  Dresden  alive  !  " 

Another  murderous  silence,  broken  this  time  by  Be- 
linda diffidently  syllabling  the  word  "  eggs." 

"Eggs,  of  course,"  cries  Rivers,  snatching  at  the 
happy  suggestion,  and  darting  a  look  of  enamored  grati- 
tude at  her  who  has  made  it.  "  How  stupid  not  to  think 
of  them  before  !  nothing  in  the  world  better  than  a 
fresh  egg,  nor  more  nutritious  !  " 

This  last  clause  is  a  poor  little  sop  thrown  to  the  Pro- 
fessor's ireful  maw.  In  a  moment  he  has  fled  swift  as 
any  scudding  rabbit  to  the  house,  and  in  two  seconds 
more  is  back  again,  beaming. 

"  Of  course  they  can  have  eggs — any  number  ;  and  in 
three  minutes  at  the  outside  they  will  be  cooked." 

But  the  three  minutes  pass,  and  three  more,  and  three 
more  again. 

"  I  wish,"  says  Sarah,  addressing  herself  in  a  tone  of 


BELINDA.  59 


the  most  intense  and  poignant  crossness  to  the  young 
man,  "that  you  would  kindly  sit  somewhere  where  I 
could  not  see  you  ;  I  think  I  could  bear  it  better  if  you 
did.  You  look  so  idiotically  cheerful !  " 

Even  as  she  speaks,  the  Dienst-madchen  comes  into 
sight,  sauntering  deliberately  down  the  path  ;  having  by 
her  want  of  sympathy  with  their  sufferings  clearly  amply 
dined  herself,  and  with  a  plate  upon  which  many  eggs 
are  drunkenly  rolling  about  together  in  her  hand. 

At  this  simple  sight  the  Professor  smiles  faintly,  and 
even  Sarah's  sulky  brow  grows  smooth.  But  alas  !  too 
soon  do  they  exult !  It  takes  but  one  glance  to  show 
that  no  new-laid  eggs  are  these,  milky  and  warm,  over 
which  the  triumphant  hens  have  but  just  ceased  chuck- 
ling. Elderly,  nay,  veteran  eggs  are  these,  as  their  dirty, 
mottled  hue  but  too  plainly  testifies.  The  only  wonder 
is  how  a  single  family  can  have  become  possessed  of  so 
many  addled  eggs  at  once. 

"  You  had  better  take  care  how  you  open  it !  "  says 
Rivers,  laughing  nervously,  and  with  an  ill-timed  attempt 
at  a  joke,  as  the  Professor  cautiously  cracks  one,  his  fel- 
lows looking  breathlessly  on;  "it  will  probably  go  off 
with  a  bang  !  " 

Nobody  smiles. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

"I.  HAVE  cut  my  own  throat,"  says  Rivers,  ruefully, 
taking  six  addled  eggs  out  of  his  pocket,  in  wtich  he  has 
carried  them  off,  to  prevent  their  being  imposed  as  fresh 
upon  any  more  unsuspecting  travelers. 

It  is  somewhat  later  in  the  day.  They  have  shaken 
the  dust  of  Lohmen  off  their  feet ;  have  tramped,  faint 
and  silent,  along  a  charming  road  whose  wayside  flowers 


60  BELINDA. 


they  do  not  see,  and  through  a  long  straggling  village, 
whose  high-pitched  roofs  and  general  picturesqueness 
they  execrate,  to  Loch  Miihle,  whither,  with  premature 
confidence  in  the  Lohmen  Gast-hofs  powers  of  entertain- 
ment, they  had  sent  on  the  carriage.  They  have  passed 
down  a  gentle  incline,  and  found  at  the  foot  the  mill- 
house,  sitting  by  the  brisk  mill-stream.  The  Frau  Mtil- 
lerin  has  brought  them  out  excellent  milk,  coffee,  cakes, 
and  eggs,  unimpeachably,  splendidly  fresh,  and  they 
have  eaten  them  at  a  snowy-draped  deal  table,  to  "the 
sound  of  the  whizzing  mill  and  the  dripping  water  and 
the  carolling  birds.  Here  by  the  rivulet  sits  the  floury 
mill,  and  past  it  the  quick  stream  runs,  and  over  a  small 
weir,  a  few  yards  higher  up,  the  noisy  bright  water  pours. 
Ostensibly  to  look  at  the  weir,  but  in  reality  only  urged 
by  that  rage  for  being  t$te-d-tete  which  possesses  such 
happy  fools  as  they,  even  if  it  be  only  to  say  to  one  an- 
other, "  How  much  dust !  "  or  "  How  many  flies  !  "  Be- 
linda and  Rivers  have  left  their  companions,  and  now 
stand  side  by  side  at  the  river's  edge. 

"  They  might  have  got  over  the  veal ! "  says  Rivers, 
pensively  regarding  the  eggs  in  his  hand,  previous  to 
hurling  them  with  vindictive  force,  one  after  the  other, 
across  the  stream. 

"  Never  !  "  interpolates  Belinda,  with  emphasis. 

"But  it  was  these  that  gave  them  the  coup  de  grdce!" 
adds  the  young  man,  wrathf  ully  aiming  the  last  one  at  an 
opposite  rock,  against  which  it  breaks  with  a  dull,  addled 
thud.  "I  suppose  they  will  never  make  an  excursion 
with  us  again  ?  " 

"  Never  ! "  repeats  Belinda,  with  still  more  energy. 
"  I  am  sure  that  I  would  not,  if  I  were  they." 

"  Then  next  time,"  says  Rivers  hurriedly,  and  looking 
away,  "  we  shall  have  to  go  by  ourselves." 

It  is  the  most  audacious  and  leading  speech  he  has 


BELINDA.  61 


ever  made  her ;  and  whether  it  be  his  own  audacity  or 
the  picture  his  words  have  conjured  up,  his  voice  trembles. 
What  a  picture  !  A  whole  long  summer-day  ! — she  and 
he  together,  and  alone  !  A  day  when  he  need  never  take 
his  eyes  off  her ;  when  he  would  ask  leave  to  lie  at  her 
feet,  and  might  pull  her  flowers  and  soft  grasses,  and 
could  count  her  eyelashes  and  each  breath  she  sweetly 
drew ;  and  perhaps,  at  the  very  end  of  the  day,  if  he 
were  very  good,  and  she  in  a  very  gentle  mood — he  has 
to  own  that  she  is  not  always  gentle — she  might  give  him 
one  of  her  long  white  hands  to  kiss — once,  just  once  !  In 
his  imagination  he  is  already  feeling  its  cool  satin  beneath 
his  lips,  when  her  reply  comes  and  at  once  knocks  down 
his  card-house. 

"  How  likely  !  "  she  says  curtly,  also  turning  her  head, 
but  in  the  opposite  direction  to  that  in  which  he  has 
turned  his. 

"You  would  not  like  it,  of  course?"  he  says,  chap- 
fallenly,  and  yet  with  a  sort  of  slight  interrogation  in  his 
tone. 

She  would  not  like  it !  To  herself  she  almost  laughs. 
Is  it  possible  that  he  does  not  guess  that  the  reason  why 
she  has  turned  away  her  face  is  that  she  dares  not  let  him 
see  the  stir  and  tumult  that  his  mere  suggestion  has  made 
there  ?  But  he  would  be  very  much  keener-sighted,  and 
a  much  greater  coxcomb  than  he  is,  if  he  could  draw  this 
conclusion  from  her  harsh  and  snubbing  words. 

"  I  never  waste  time,"  she  says  chillingly,  "  in  specu- 
lating as  to  whether  I  should  like  or  dislike  what  is  abso- 
lutely out  of  the  question." 

There  is  a  slight  silence.  Rivers  feels  as  if  a  large 
pail  of  half -frozen  water  had  been  thrown  over  him,  and 
were  now  trickling  down  the  nape  of  his  neck.  Belinda 
is  still  hearing,  with  passionate  vexation,  the  sound  of 
her  own  ungracious  voice.  Why  is  it  that  she  never  can 


62  BELINDA. 


hit  the  juste  milieu  of  cool  and  friendly  civility  ?  How 
is  it  that  her  heart  is  so  burning  hot,  and  her  words  so 
icy  cold  ?  Her  eyes,  averse  from  meeting  the  reproach  of 
his,  look  across  to  where,  on  the  other  side  of  the  racing 
beck,  the  rocks  rise  straight  up,  and  out  of  their  clefts 
slight  little  fir-trees  grow,  grasping  the  stony  soil  with 
their  shallow  roots,  and  dainty  green  birches  wave,  and 
just-new  creasy  ferns  droop  and  sprout,  and  hang  their 
small  spring  ensigns. 

"  What  an  iceberg  you  are  !  "  says  the  young  man  at 
last,  in  a  low  tone  of  irrepressible  mortification. 

"  An  iceberg  ?  "  she  repeats,  lifting  one  hand  to  her 
face,  and  with  her  forefinger  and  thumb  gently  pinching 
her  own  trembling  under-lip.  "  Yes  ;  so  I  have  often 
been  told.  I  think,"  after  a  slight  pause,  "  that  I  am  a 
little  tired  of  being  told  it." 

"  Are  you  tired  of  being  it  ?  "  says  Rivers,  sinking  his 
voice  still  more,  though  there  is  no  one  but  the  brook  to 
overhear  him,  and  it  is  much  too  occupied  with  its  own 
sweet  chatter  to  attend  to  him,  and  giving  her  a  piercing 
look  as  he  speaks. 

For  all  answer  she  leaves  him  at  once,  and  walks,  with 
such  speed  as  if  a  mad  bull  were  behind  her,  back  to  the 
other  pair  of  sweethearts.  He  follows  her,  despair  at  his 
heart  —  the  light  lover's  despair,  that  is  to  say,  that  a 
frown  engenders  and  a  smile  kills  ;  thinking,  heart-sickly, 
that  he  will  now  have  to  redeem  his  own  rash  forward 
step  by  half  a  dozen  tiresome  retrograde  ones. 

But  fortune  deals  more  kindly  with  him  than  he  had  ex- 
pected of  her.  The  Professor  and  Sarah  are  both  asleep. 
Coffee  is  generally  supposed  to  be  a  wakeful  potion  ;  but 
in  their  case,  mixed  in  nice  proportions  with  fatigue,  ill- 
humor,  and  boredom,  it  has  had  a  precisely  contrary  ef- 
fect. The  Professor's  head  has  dropped  forward  on  his 
chest — always  a  trying  position  to  any  one  beyond  rosy 


BELINDA.      ^  63 


childhood  ;  the  veins  on  his  forehead  have  started  for- 
ward, the  blood  has  run  into  his  long  nose,  and  his  under- 
lip  protrudes.  It  is  clearly  an  unintended  nap,  which  has 
overtaken  him  accidentally,  in  defiance  of  his  rules,  and 
contrary  to  his  sanitary  principles.  Sarah's,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  the  slumber,  deliberately  undertaken,  of  a  person 
who  sees  in  sleep  the  most  endurable  mode  of  getting 
over  an  irksome  period  of  time.  Her  feet,  carefully  cov- 
ered by  a  shawl,  repose  on  a  chair  in  front  of  her  ;  a  light 
ulster,  rolled  up  so  as  to  form  a  little  bolster,  nicks  com- 
fortably into  the  nape  of  her  neck  ;  her  head  is  so  much 
thrown  back  as  to  afford  an  excellent  opportunity  for  cut- 
ting her  charming  white  throat. 

A  smile  breaks  over  Belinda's  face. 

"  It  would  be  a  pity  to  disturb  them,"  she  says,  whis- 
pering. 

"  A  thousand  pities,"  assents  he  eagerly.  "  Would 
not  it  be  better,"  speaking  with  a  timorousness  born  of 
his  late  rebuff,  "  for  us  to  go  out  of  ear-shot  ?  " 

She  looks  first  at  the  mill,  then  relentingly  at  him. 

"  Should  you  think  that  there  was  a  nice  path  be- 
yond ?  "  she  asks  demurely. 

So  through  the  noisy  white  mill  they  go,  nodding 
friendlily  to  the  powdery  miller  as  they  pass.  Along  the 
river  path  they  saunter,  rocks  above  their  glad  heads — 
rocks,  not  frowning  nor  grand,  nor  by  any  means  very 
big  and  beetling,  but  with  finest  grass  and  yellow  wall- 
flowers nestled  in  their  rifts,  and  making  mimic  gardens 
of  their  little  ridges  and  crannies. 

On  their  other  hand  the  small  river  frolicking,  and  on 
its  farther  side  rocks  again,  grass  again,  sun  and  flowers 
again  :  drooping  birches  and  straight  pines.  At  every 
step  that  carries  them  farther  from  the  mill  Rivers's 
spirits  rise. 

"I  hope,"  he  says,  chuckling  over  the  recollection — 


64  BELINDA. 


"I  hope,  for  his  own  sake,  that  Professor  Forth  will 
awake  first.  If  Miss  Churchill  sees  him  as  we  have  just 
done,  I  would  not  give  much  for  his  chance  ! " 

"And  I  would  not  give  much  for  it,  whichever  wakes 
first ! "  answers  Belinda  ominously. 

By-and-by,  though  they  are  not  at  all  tired,  they  sit 
down.  After  all,  it  is  not  so  very  unlike  his  vision — the  vis- 
ion that  she  had  so  disdainfully  pooh-poohed.  Nor  when 
she  speaks  does  she,  as  he  half  feared  that  she  would, 
break  the  illusion,  for  her  voice  is  gentle,  almost  apologetic. 

"I  should  like  to  explain  something  to  you,  if  you 
will  attend  to  me." 

If  he  will  attend  to  her  !  Could  he  ever  dare  to  think 
that  any  utterance  of  his  idol's  might  be  nonsense,  it 
would  be  now.  If  he  will  attend  to  her!  He  who,  if  at 
dinner  she  asks  him  to  pass  the  salt,  listens  with  such 
entranced  reverence  as  if  it  were  to  the  Spheres  together 
singing. 

"  Do  I  usually  not  attend  when  you  speak  ?  "  he  asks, 
with  timid  irony. 

He  has  rested  his  elbow  on  a  little  plat  of  soft  turf 
upon  the  rock,  and  his  head  on  his  right  hand,  which 
brings  him  fully  an  inch  and  a  half  nearer  her  (in  itself 
no  despicable  gain),  and  is  feasting  with  leisurely  rapture 
— there  must  be  no  discomfort  of  posture  to  mar  such 
high  enjoyment — on  each  slow  turn  of  her  head,  on  its 
thick  white  throat ;  and  without  any  fear  of  Sarah's  gim- 
let eyes  derisively  perforating  him. 

"  I  know,"  continues  Belinda,  who  is  not  leaning  on 
either  elbow,  but  is  sitting  very  upright  and  looking  shy 
— "  I  am  conscious  that  I  have  taken  things  you  have  said 
to  me — little  harmless,  unmeaning,  civil  things,"  with  a 
hasty  blush  of  fear  lest  she  should  be  supposed  to  have 
attached  too  much  importance  to  them,  "very  awk- 
wardly !  very  surlily  ! " 


BELINDA,    u  65 


"  Have  you  ?  "  he  answers  ruefully.  "  I  do  not  think 
you  have  taken  them  at  all  !  I  think  you  have  thrown 
them  back  in  my  face  !  " 

"I  know,"  she  answers  penitently;  "that  is  what  I 
wanted  to  explain  to  you.  In  point  of  fact,"  no  longer 
blushing,  but  looking  at  him  directly  with  her  honest 
eyes,  "  I  am  not  used  to  them  !  " 

"  Not  used  to  civil  speeches  ? "  repeats  he,  in  an  ac- 
cent of  the  most  profound  astonishment ;  he  who  when 
in  her  company  is  in  a  continual  state  of  biting  his  own 
tongue  out  to  prevent  it  from  breaking  into  extravagant 
laudations  ;  and  who  can  not  but  believe  that  all  other 
created  things  are  laboring  under  the  same  difficulty  with 
himself ! 

She  shakes  her  head. 

"  No  ;  I  am  not.  I  suppose,"  looking  reflectively  at 
the  flower-lipped  brook,  "that  it  is  an  unusual  case;  I 
think  it  must  be  owing  to  my  forbidding  manner  !  " 

"  Then  why,  in  Heaven's  name,  have  you  a  forbidding 
manner?"  asks  he  in  a  sort  of  involuntary  passion  of 
wonder. 

Even  he  can  not  altogether  deny  the  fact  ;  and  yet  it 
seems  so  coarsely  inconsistent  with  everything  else  about 
her.  A  forbidding  manner  with  that  throat,  and  those 
ears,  and  that  nape  to  her  neck  !  Her  hair  is  dressed 
rather  high  in  the  French  fashion,  and  she  often  turns 
her  back  upon  him,  so  that  he  has  a  good  view  of  it. 

"  Why  have  I  a  short  nose  ?  "  replies  she,  with  a  good- 
humored  shrug ;  "  you  might  just  as  well  ask  me  that  ! 
It  is  a  misfortune  with  which  I  was  born  !  " 

But  as  he  makes  no  light  rejoinder — poor  fellow  !  he 
is  beyond  it,  up  to  his  neck  in  the  hopeless  dullness  of  a 
serious  passion — only  enveloping  her  with  the  smothered 
flame  of  his  silent  looks,  she  grows  shy  and  grave  again. 

"  It  is  a  bonafide  misfortune,"  she  says,  slightly  shak- 


66  BELINDA. 


ing  her  head  ;  "  I  have  no  wish  to  be  forbidding.  I 
think  in  my  heart  I  am  quite  as  anxious  to  please  as  any 
one  else  can  be  ;  I  will  even  own,"  with  a  brief,  nervous 
smile,  "  that  I  should  like  whenever  I  entered  a  room  to 
hear  a  buzz  of  admiration  run  round  it  !  No,  no  !  "  sud- 
denly changing  her  tone  and  stretching  out  both  hands 
forbiddingly  toward  him  ;  "  do  not  try  to  say  that  I  might 
now  ;  if  you  do,  I  shall  go  back  to  the  mill  at  once  !  " 

"  It  would  hardly  be  worth  while,"  replies  he  dryly  ; 
"you  might  put  up  with  my  clumsy  compliments  -  this 
once — by-the-by,  as  it  happens,  I  was  not  thinking  of 
paying  you  one  then — since  it  is,  as  you  say,  the  last 
time  !  " 

She  has  reddened  painfully  at  the  idea  of  having  sought 
to  avert  a  flattery  which,  after  all,  was  not  coming ;  but 
she  tries  to  carry  it  off  lightly. 

"  Perhaps  it  may  not  be  the  last,"  she  says  cheer- 
fully ;  "  we  have  always  one  resource  left  ;  we  can  ask 
Miss  Watson  to  chaperon  us.  I  never  knew  her  refuse  to 
go  anywhere,  at  any  time,  with  anybody,  and  she  never 
has  any  previous  engagement." 

He  laughs,  but  adds  quickly  with  reflective  serious- 
ness : 

"  She  would  be  better  than  nothing." 

"  She  would  be  able,  too,"  says  Belinda,  idly  rolling 
her  open  parasol  to  and  fro  along  the  narrow  path  in 
front  of  her,  and  smiling  rather  consciously  at  her  own 
thoughts — "  she  would  be  able,  too,  to  repair  any  omis- 
sion she  may  have  made  in  the  catechism  she  put  you 
through  the  other  day.  She  might  ask  you  a  few  more 
home  questions  as  to  your  ancestors  and  your  social  stand- 
ing, etc." 

"  I  am  sure  she  is  very  welcome,"  answers  the  boy, 
straightforwardly  ;  "  the  only  thing  that  I  am  afraid  of, 
for  her  sake,  is  that  she  has  already  pumped  me  nearly 


BELINDA.      c.  67 


dry  !  I  think  I  have  told  her  everything.  What  did  I 
tell  her—that  I  have  just  left  Oxbridge  ?  " 

Belinda  shakes  her  head. 

"  No,  you  did  not  tell  her  that ;  because,  if  you  had, 
she  would  certainly  have  asked  you  at  once  if  you  had 
not  been  plowed  ;  or,  if  you  were  not  quite  sure  that 
you  had  not  been  expelled  !  " 

"  That  we  live  in  Yorkshire  ? "  continues  he,  aiding 
memory  by  lifting  a  hand  to  his  forehead  ;  "  that  there 
are  six  of  us  ?  and  that  my  father  is  an  ironmaster  ?  " 

"  An  ironmaster  !  "  repeats  Belinda,  suddenly  discon- 
tinuing her  idle  fidgeting  with  her  sunshade,  and  looking 
up  with  great  animation.  No  ;  you  certainly  did  not  tell 
her  that ;  an  ironmaster,  is  he  ?  " 

There  are  such  obvious  surprise  and  pleasure  in  her 
tone  that  Rivers  looks  at  her  with  some  astonishment. 

"  Yes,"  he  answers,  "  an  ironmaster ;  why,  what  did 
you  think  he  was  ?  " 

But  this  is  a  question  to  which  it  is  of  course  quite 
impossible  that  she  can  truly  respond.  How  can  she  un- 
fold to  him  Sarah's  degrading  supposition,  or  her  own 
relief  at  learning  to  what  an  eminently  respectable  branch 
of  commerce  his  family  belongs  ?  An  ironmaster,  indeed  ! 
Why,  it  is  the  stuff  of  which  merchant  princes  are  made  ! 
So  she  only  answers,  with  something  of  a  stammer  : 

"  Oh,  I — I — of  course  I  did  not  know  !  I  had  no  idea  !  " 

"  It  is  to  be  hoped,  for  her  own  sake,"  says  Rivers, 
raising  himself  from  his  elbow  and  looking  proud  and 
eager,  "that  she  will  not  get  me  upon  the  subject  of  my 
father,  for  it  is  a  theme  upon  which  I  am  apt  to  be  long- 
winded." 

"  Is  it  ?  "  she  answers,  interested,  while  in  her  heart  she 
is  calculating  how  soon  she  can  produce  to  Sarah  this  tri- 
umphant refutation  of  her  suspicions.  Probably  not  be- 
fore they  reach  home. 


68  BELINDA. 


"  I  know  that  one  cuts  but  a  poor  figure  swaggering 
about  one's  own  belongings,"  continues  the  young  man, 
his  love-sick  air  for  the  moment  gone,  and  with  courage 
and  spirit  in  his  eyes  ;  "  but  if  ever  a  man  deserved  to  be 
looked  up  to,  my  father  does  !  " 

"  Does  he  ?  "  now  very  much  interested. 

"  If  ever  a  man  made  a  plucky  up-hill  fight  of  it,  it  was 
he  ! "  Her  heart  feels  a  slight  qualm.  Up-hill !  It  is 
clear,  then,  that  he  rose  from  the  ranks  !  "  To  begin  with, 
he  started  in  life  without  a  penny ! "  The  qualm  grows 
sicker.  He  is  going  to  tell  her  that  his  admirable  father 
swept  out  the  warehouse  !  Well,  recovering  herself,  very 
creditable  of  him  if  he  did,  and  Sarah  need  never  know  ! 
"My  grandfather  had  got  through  most  of  his  money 
racing,"  pursues  Rivers  innocently.  Her  spirits  run  up 
like  quicksilver.  Though  there  is  undoubtedly  greater 
moral  culpability  in  squandering  your  children's  heritage 
in  horse-racing  than  in  earning  them  an  honest  livelihood 
with  a  besom,  yet,  such  is  the  force  of  habit  and  associa- 
tion, Belinda  is  relieved  that  her  lover's  grandfather  ap- 
parently did  the  one  and  left  undone  the  other  !  "  And 
so  father  had  nothing  in  the  world  but  his  younger  son's 
share  of  my  grandmother's  fortune  to  look  to  ;  but  he 
gave  that  up  at  once  to  the  others,  and  faced  the  world 
without  a  stiver  !  You  may  think  whether  he  had  to  put 
his  shoulder  to  the  wheel !  For  years  he  worked  like  a — 
like  a  navvy.  Poor  dear  old  boy  !  when  I  think  of  what 
his  youth  was,  and  what  mine  is  !  " 

He  breaks  off  in  genuine  emotion,  eyes  kindling  and 
hot  color  rising.  And  Belinda,  lovingly  thinking  how 
well  such  generous  enthusiasm  becomes  him,  keeps  a 
sympathetic  silence. 

"And  now,"  continues  Rivers,  sighing — "now  that 
we  hoped  he  had  got  into  smooth  water,  and  might  take 
breath  and  enjoy  his  life  a  little,  comes  this  depression  in 


BELINDA.  69 


iron  ;  but,"  his  diffidence  rushing  back  in  floods  upon 
him  at  the  thought  of  how  he  has  been  teasing  with  his 
egotism  his  dear  Lady  Disdain,  "  I  do  not  know  why  I 
should  bother  you  with  all  this  !  " 

"I  do  not  know  why  you  should  not,"  she  answers 
softly. 

If  only  she  could  always  speak  in  that  tone  !  At  see- 
ing her  thus  gentle,  approachable,  humane,  all  his  splendid 
hopes  seem  suddenly  set  within  his  reach.  Would  not 
he  be  a  poltroon  who  deserved  to  lose  them  forever  if  he 
did  not  now  stretch  out  a  hand  to  grasp  them  ? 

"I  hope,"  he  says,  not  daring  to  look  fully  at  her, 
and  covertly,  unknown  to  her,  touching  an  outlying  rib- 
bon of  her  gown  to  give  himself  courage — "I  hope," 
trembling  exceedingly,  "that  some  day  you  will  know 
my  father." 

"  Do  you  ?  "  she  answers  curtly. 

Instantly  she  has  frozen  up  again.  Her  heart  is  beat- 
ing even  faster  than  his.  Eager  as  he  may  be  to  make 
her  known  to  whatever  is  nearest  and  dearest  to  him  on 
earth,  he  can  not  be  more  eager  than  she  is  to  be  made 
known  ;  but  her  repellent  voice  and  her  chill  face — in 
reality  the  outcome  of  a  fierce  shyness  which  she  can  no 
more  master  than  she  can  control  the  course  of  her  blood 
— give  him  to  infer  that  in  his  last  speech  he  has  out- 
stepped the  bounds  set  him  by  her. 

For  a  moment  he  keeps  a  hot,  humiliated  silence. 
Then,  reflecting  that  he  is  but  a  dastard,  who  can  be 
beaten  back  from  his  heart's  desire  by  one  rebuff,  taking 
comfort,  too,  from  what  she  had  lately  told  him  as  to  her 
own  shortcomings  in  manner,  he  plucks  up  courage  for 
one  more  effort. 

"I  should  like,"  he  says — but  he  has  involuntarily 
moved  half  a  pace  farther  away  from  her,  and  in  his  tone 
there  are  less  heartiness  and  more  misgiving  than  before 


70  BELINDA. 


— "  I  should  like  you,  of  course,  to  know  all  my  peo- 
ple." 

"  Should  you  ?  "  she  answers  dryly.  The  very  effort 
to  steady  it,  the  potency  of  the  emotion  which  dominates 
her,  making  her  voice  hard  and  surly  ;  and  with  a  dis- 
couraging stiff  laugh,  "  I  am  afraid  it  is  not  very  likely  !  " 

There  is  a  dead  silence.  For  to-day  there  is  no  more 
fear  of  his  transgressing  her  limits.  He  sits  looking 
blankly  at  the  brook.  If,  in  the  crises  of  foolish  men's 
and  women's  lives  there  were  but  a  go-between  to  inter- 
pret !  But  there  never  is  ! 

For  full  five  minutes  the  river  loudly  runs,  and  the 
finches  piercingly  sing,  without  any  human  noise  to 
break  in  upon  their  concert.  At  last  Belinda,  who  has 
been  snatching  remorseful  glances  at  the  severe  melan- 
choly of  her  sweetheart's  profile,  hazards  a  timid  propitia- 
tion : 

"  Have  you  many  sisters  ?  "  she  asks  conciliatingly. 

"Two,"  he  answers  shortly,  looking  straight  before 
him  ;  "  but,"  with  a  spurious  smile,  "  I  have  inflicted 
enough  of  my  family  upon  you  for  one  day." 

She  is  too  much  wounded  to  make  any  rejoinder,  and 
the  conversation,  which  before  had  flown  as  glibly  as  the 
stream  or  as  the  lark's  roulades,  drops  into  silence  again. 
At  their  feet  the  rock-shadows  couch.  The  sun's  rays, 
no  longer  vertical,  blaze  obliquely  upon  the  water  and 
upon  the  sunlike  dandelion-flowers. 

"  It  must  be  late,"  says  Belinda  reluctantly,  her  eyes 
turning  from  the  hurrying  sparkles  of  the  beck  to  consult 
his  face  ;  "  had  we  better  be  going  back  ?  " 

She  had  hoped  for  an  earnest  protest  from  him,  a  sup- 
plication for  yet  a  few  moments  more  of  their  bright  soli- 
tude. But  none  such  comes  !  He  makes  no  sort  of  ob- 
jection ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  rises  at  once,  and  stands 
ready  to  attend  her  ;  and  silently  they  return  to  the  mill. 


BELINDA.  71 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

"  A  whole  long  month  of  May  in  this  sad  plight, 
Made  their  cheeks  paler  by  the  break  of  June. 

*  To-morrow  will  I  bow  to  my  delight, 

To-morrow  will  I  ask  my  lady's  boon  1 ' 

*  0  may  I  never  see  another  night, 

Lorenzo,  if  thy  lips  breathe  not  love's  tune.' 
So  spake  they  to  their  pillows ;  but  alas  ! 
Honeyless  days  and  nights  did  he  let  pass." 

"  WHAT  a  mercy  it  is  to  be  alone  for  a  change  !  "  says 
Sarah  ;  "  is  not  it  ?  You  do  not  assent  with  the  warmth 
I  should  have  expected,  eh  ?  And  what  a  much  richer 
and  rarer  mercy  it  is  that  we  are  not  to  be  driven  a-pleas- 
uring  twenty  hot  miles  at  a  stretch,  and  carouse  on  rot- 
ten eggs  at  the  end  !  " 

It  is  near  noon,  and  the  sisters  are  walking  in  the 
Grosse  Garten,  that  green  and  ample  pleasure-ground, 
with  its  tall  trees  and  its  intersecting  drives,  of  the  Dres- 
den burghers.  Against  a  peevish  sky  the  Museum  of 
Antiquities  lifts  its  greenish  roof  ;  in  its  pool,  with  the 
little  swan-house  in  the  middle,  there  is  beginning  to 
come  a  vernal  glow  from  the  reflections  of  the  young- 
leaved  horse  -  chestnuts  standing  round  ;  in  the  flower- 
beds the  pansies  and  cinerarias  bloom  purple  and  yellow. 

Belinda's  only  answer  to  her  sister's  self-gratulations 
is  to  stoop  and  console  Slutty,  who  has  returned  in  some 
disorder  from  a  slight  excursion,  having  been  coarsely 
hustled  away  by  the  shabby,  surly  Polizei,  who  guard  and 
pompously  warn  off  profane  dogs  from  the  meager  blos- 
soms. 

"  The  beauty  of  these  straight  drives,"  continues  Sa- 
rah, thoughtfully  eying  one  of  the  long  vistas  of  trees 
that  gradually  lessens  away  to  nothing,  "  is  that  you 
never  can  be  taken  by  surprise  in  them  :  nobody  can 


72  BELINDA. 


pounce  out  upon  you  from  round  a  corner  ;  it  is  merely  a 
question  of  long  sight.  Now,  if  I  saw  my  admirer  in  the 
distance,  I  should  simply  whip  behind  one  of  these  friend- 
ly trees,"  looking  up  at  an  oak  that,  still  wintrily  brown, 
rises  from  the  tenderly  greening  undergrowth.  "  What 
would  you  do  if  you  saw  yours  ?  " 

"I  do  not  know  which  you  mean,"  answers  Belinda, 
with  an  awkward  attempt  at  gayety,  for  this  morning  she 
is  not  gay  ;  "  I  have  so  many  !  " 

"  No,  you  have  not,"  replies  Sarah  calmly  ;  "  but  you 
have  one.  How  long  you  will  keep  him  is  another  ques- 
tion. Judging  by  the  crushed  and  flattened  condition  to 
which  you  had  reduced  him  last  evening,  I  should  say 
probably  not  long." 

"At  all  events,"  cries  Belinda,  whom  this  chance  cut 
has  stung  more  deeply  than  it  was  intended — "at  all 
events,  I  had  not  reduced  him  to  the  condition  of  foam- 
ing rage  to  which  you  had  brought  Professor  Forth.  He 
said,"  laughing  unwillingly,  "  that  if  he  had  not  known 
that  you  were  sincerely  attached  to  him,  he  should  have 
had  difficulty  in  overlooking  your  conduct ! " 

"Do  you  think  he  will  jilt  me?"  cries  Sarah,  in  a 
delighted  voice,  and  with  a  radiant  smile.  "  No,"  shak- 
ing her  head  ;  "  no  such  luck.  My  conduct  was  not 
good,"  with  a  candid  air  ;  "  but  it  had  its  palliations — he 
fell  asleep  ! " 

"So  did  you." 

"  But  did  I  look  like  him  ?  "  dryly.  "  Anyhow,  with 
my  good  resolutions,  it  was  a  case  of  '  look  in  his  face, 
and  you  forget  them  all.' " 

A  pause.  A  solitary  rider  is  cantering  along  the  drive. 
A  blue  Gardereiter  is  practicing  his  four-in-hand  team  of 
chestnuts  in  a  sort  of  phaeton,  up  and  down,  up  and 
down.  The  girls  have  reached  a  spot  where  there  is 
a  little  quiet  peep  among  the  trees  ;  a  plot  of  lush  green 


BELINDA.  73 


grass,  vividly  green,  backed  by  sedate  high  firs,  across 
which  a  few  young  birches  are  throwing  their  infinitely 
delicate  leafage,  and  stretching  their  shining  white  stems. 

"  It  seems  he  has  a  mother,"  says  Sarah  presently,  her 
eyes  following  the  diminishing  Gardereiter  and  his  team. 

"  Has  I  had,  you  mean  !  " 

"  Has.  I  am  afraid  I  let  him  see  that  I  thought  it  a 
remarkable  instance  of  longevity."  She  stops  to  laugh, 
and  then  goes  on,  letting  fall  each  little  sentence  with 
deliberate  serenity  :  "  She  lives  with  him  ;  she  is  in  her 
dotage  ;  she  never  stops  asking  questions  ;  and  it  seems 
that  the  chief est  of  his  wife's  married  joys  is  to  consist  in 
answering  them." 

"Was  it  at  that  stage  of  his  confidences  that  you 
cried  out,  '  Ceci  est  insupportable  I '  and  took  to  your 
heels  and  left  him  ?  "  asks  Belinda  dryly. 

"  It  must  have  been  somewhere  about  then,"  answers 
Sarah  modestly.  "He  did  not  recognize  the  quotation, 
and  he  was  displeased  at  the  sentiment.  However,"  with 
a  shrug,  "I  will  not  do  it  again,  for  your  sake,  and  in 
your  interests  ;  and  if  he  does  not  fall  asleep,  and  shoot 
out  his  under-lip,  I  think  I  shall  be  able  to  hold  out  until 
we  go.  This  is  the  fourth,"  reflectively  checking  off  the 
numbers  on  her  fingers  ;  "  one,  two,  three,  four,  five — in 
less  than  five  weeks  we  shall  be  in  London." 

"  In  less  than  five  weeks  ! "  repeats  Belinda,  stopping 
short  and  paling,  while  an  expression  of  something  very 
like  terror  looks  out  of  the  pupils  of  her  dismayed  eyes. 

"  In  less  than  five  weeks  ! "  assents  Sarah,  nodding. 
"  I  heard  granny  telling  Gustel  that  she  would  not  need 
her  services  after  the  1st  of  June,  and  courteously  adding 
how  glad  she  would  be  to  be  rid  of  her.  Pooh  !  "  laying 
her  hand  on  her  sister's  shoulder,  and  giving  her  a  shrewd, 
good-natured  glance,  "  do  not  look  so  woe-begone  ;  it  is 
only  a  case  of  hurrying  the  pace  a  little." 
4 


74  BELINDA. 


Belinda's  answer  is  a  gesture  of  disgust.  She  walks 
quickly  on. 

"It  is  coarsely  worded,  I  admit,"  continues  the  other, 
briskly  following,  and  keeping  up  with  her  ;  "  but  be- 
lieve me,  the  advice  is  sound." 

And  so  it  may  be  ;  but  as  it  is  addressed  to  a  person 
who  is  utterly  incapable  of  making  use  of  it,  it  is,  like 
most  other  advice,  wasted.  To  hurry  the  pace  a  little  ! 
For  days  and  days  afterward  the  vile  phrase  recurs  to 
her,  dinning  in  her  ears.  As  often — and  that  is  not  sel- 
dom— as  the  terror  which  had  seized  her  in  the  Grosse 
Garten  returns,  so  often  does  the  brutal  consolation  with 
which  her  sister  had  tried  to  allay  it.  And  as  the  price- 
less days  slip  by — slip  away  out  of  the  fingers  stretched 
forth  in  such  a  fever  to  detain  them — it  takes  in  her  ears 
a  horrible  inflection  of  irony.  Over  and  over  and  over 
again  it  keeps  saying  itself  to  her,  as  she  lies  awake  at 
night,  hour  after  hour — she  can  lie  awake  with  the  best 
of  them  now — hearing  the  engines  screech  and  the  trains 
thunder  along  the  Bohmischer  Bahn  ;  watching  the  now 
withering  blossoms  drop  from  the  pear-tree  in  the  keen 
moonlight,  and  reckoning  over  to  herself,  until  her  brain 
grows  dull  and  tardy  sleep  releases  her,  the  small  and 
diminishing  hoard  of  precious  hours  during  which  there 
will  be  any  object  in  living.  For  that,  what  makes  the 
essence  of  these  days  may  not  pass,  may  last  on  through 
a  long  transfigured  lifetime,  is  a  hope  too  glorious  for 
her  to  dare  lift  her  wet  and  dazzled  eyes  to  its  face.  And 
meanwhile  the  days  themselves  are  passing  !  Oh,  how 
they  are  passing  !  To  hurry  the  pace  !  How  can  she 
hurry  the  pace  ?  she  asks  herself  desperately,  in  the 
watches  of  the  night,  unconsciously  accepting  the  de- 
testable phrase.  What  can  she,  being  she,  do?  How 
can  she,  tied  down  by  her  nature,  by  her  stiff  ^necked 
virgin  pride,  by  the  very  force  of  her  dumb,  pent  passion^ 


BELINDA.  75 


put  out  a  finger  to  help  herself  ?  As  easily  can  she  make 
the  gray  irises  of  her  eyes  coal-black.  Is  it  her  fault  that 
all  strong  emotion  with  her  translates  itself  into  a  cold, 
hard  voice,  and  a  chill  set  face  ?  With  other  women  it 
translates  itself  into  dimples  and  pink  blushes  and  lowered 
eyes.  Ah  !  but  do  they  feel  as  she  does  ?  Sarah,  for 
instance.  When  do  men  ever  leave  Sarah's  company 
with  the  down-faced,  baffled,  white  look  with  which 
Rivers  has  more  than  once  quitted  hers?  Preening 
themselves  rather  ;  with  sleeked  feathers  and  cosseted 
vanity. 

"  I  am  not  of  the  stuff  of  which  the  women  that  men 
love  are  made  !  "  she  says,  thinking  with  an  envious  hu- 
mility of  her  sister's  graces,  and  staring  blankly  at  the 
stove,  beginning  to  glimmer  white  in  the  dawn.  But  to 
such  a  radical  fault  of  nature  and  constitution,  what 
remedy  can  there  be  ?  Tamely  to  copy  her  sister's  airy 
charms  and  light  coquetries  ? 

"It  would  be  the  donkey  playing  the  lap-dog  !  "  she 
cries  bitterly. 

And  yet,  despite  all  their  mischances,  and  their  agues, 
and  their  desperations,  what  superb  days  these  are ! 
Few  ?  Yes,  perhaps.  But  when  one  reflects  how  much 
acute  happiness  may  be  packed  into  five  minutes,  and 
how  many  five  minutes  there  are  in  a  month,  these  two 
may  be  accounted  to  have  been  largely  dowered,  seeing 
that  to  many  a  one,  not  held  to  be  specially  spited  by 
fortune,  it  is  not  given  in  all  his  or  her  lifetime  to  attain 
to  one  such  day.  Days  when  round  each  corner  lurks  a 
splendid  possibility  ;  days  when  each  ring  at  the  bell  may 
mean  that  heaven  has  opened.  Very  often  it  means 
nothing  of  the  kind ;  it  means  Miss  Watson,  or  Gustel, 
or  a  parcel,  but  it  may. 

In  later  life  you  may  be  as  fortunate  as  you  please  ; 
a  laurel  garland  round  your  head,  a  colossal  balance  at 


76  BELINDA. 


Coutts's,  a  chaste,  fond  wife  and  paragon  children,  but 
Heaven  can  no  longer  pounce  upon  you  from  round  the 
street  corner. 

"  Parting,  they  seemed  to  tread  upon  the  air, 

Twin  roses  by  the  zephyr  blown  apart, 
Only  to  meet  again  more  close,  and  share 
The  inward  fragrance  of  each  other's  heart." 

Yes,  superb  days  !  though  on  one  or  two  of  them  the 
east  wind  blew  piercingly,  sweeping  across  the  wide 
plain  ;  and  on  another  one  or  two  the  rain  slid  down  from 
the  heavy  clouds,  and  blurred  the  windows. 

But  if  it  blurred  the  windows,  did  it  not  thereby  make 
the  task  of  Miss  Watson's  spyglass  a  more  difficult  one  ? 
and  could  the  wind  reach  them  in  the  little  pine-wood 
behind  the  bleak  Barracks,  where  they  walked  safe  and 
warm  on  strewn  fir-needles,  and  listened  to  its  harmless 
scolding  far  above  their  happy  heads  ? 

How  often  they  meet  !  how  perpetually,  how  always  ! 
In  the  Alt  Market,  buying  jonquils  of  the  ugly  German 
Fraus,  as  they  sit  under  their  great  cotton  umbrellas, 
queening  it  over  their  carrots  and  radishes  ;  with  the  old 
houses,  all  different  heights  and  shapes,  russet-red  roofed, 
endlessly  dormer-windowed,  standing  round  ;  at  Plauen 
under  the  cool  cherry-orchards  ;  at  Meissen,  in  the  hot 
Fabrik  ;  in  the  Neu-Stadt,  in  the  Alt-Stadt — everywhere. 
If,  in  after-years,  they  revisit  the  bright  city,  what  spot 
in  all  its  precincts  will  be  empty  and  innocent  of  associa- 
tions to  them  ? 

Superb  days  !  But  they  are  going.  Racing-pace  they 
gallop  by.  How  will  it  be  when  they  are  gone  ? 

As  the  time  passes,  she  grows  ever  less  and  less  in  a 
condition  to  face  this  problem.  By-and-by  she  refuses  to 
face  it  at  all.  When  it  comes  it  comes  ;  but  till  then 
let  her  not  be  defrauded  of  her  birthright.  Let  her  too, 


BELINDA.  77 


like  the  May-flies  and  the  Painted  Ladies,  have  her  span 
of  careless,  giddy  bliss. 

Whenever  the  conversation  turns  upon  their  depart- 
ure, their  journey,  their  arrival  in  London,  upon  anything 
that  lies  beyond  the  horizon  of  the  now,  and  the  here,  if 
it  be  possible,  she  leaves  the  room  ;  if  it  be  not  possible, 
she  feverishly  seeks  to  divert  the  talk  into  other  chan- 
nels. 

But  if  she  can  fight  thought  off  pretty  well  in  the 
day,  the  variegated,  distracting,  kaleidoscope  day,  it  in- 
demnifies itself  at  night.  At  night  there  it  is,  and  noth- 
ing but  it ;  no  flickering  leaves,  or  scudding  clouds,  or 
passers-by  ;  nothing  but  it :  an  image  drawn  on  night's 
plain  black  canvas  with  a  hard,  cutting  clearness,  as  of 
an  acid  biting  into  steel ;  so  that  she  must  look  at  it. 

As  for  her,  at  this  time  she  would  be  thankful  that  there 
was  no  night  at  all.  She  does  not  need  its  refreshment. 
Without  it  her  every  power  seems  strung  up  to  the  high- 
est pitch  of  efficiency,  and  she  dreads,  oh  how  she  dreads 
its  solitude  and  silence  !  In  the  daytime,  however  un- 
conventionally early  or  improbably  late  may  be  the  hour, 
there  is  always  a  possibility,  nay,  a  likelihood,  of  seeing 
his  strapping  figure  and  his  burning  eyes  following  the 
infant  stolidity  of  the  page,  Tommy,  into  the  salon.  But 
in  the  night  this  is  impossible.  The  night,  therefore, 
is  time  absolutely  wasted  ;  now,  too,  when  there  is  so 
little  time  left  to  waste.  Of  what  use  is  it  but  for  lying 
broad  awake  in,  counting  up  how  many  hours  the  differ- 
ent moments,  half -hours,  of  their  meetings  make?  To 
her,  just  so  much  of  life  is  worth  reckoning  as  life  at  all ; 
the  rest  is  unimportant  padding. 

And  he  ?  As  to  him,  the  pavement  of  the  quiet  Ltit- 
tichau  Strasse  before  her  door  is  worn  hollow  by  his  foot- 
steps ;  his  eyes  devour  her  ;  his  tongue  stutters  in  lame 
speech  to  her,  and  altogether  omits  to  answer  when  ad- 


78  BELINDA. 


dressed  by  any  one  else.  He  has  abandoned  all  other 
occupations  in  life  but  that  of  dogging  her.  But  he  has 
not  asked  her  to  be  his  wife. 

To  how  much  more  purpose  would  be  that  one  short 
practical  question  than  all  his  resultless,  love-sick  manoBu- 
vres,  than  all  the  enormous  nosegays  with  which  her  room 
is  over-filled  and  over-scented —  for  she  can  not  bear  to 
throw  away  even  the  dead  ones. 

Perhaps  this  thought  crosses  her  mind  now  and  again. 
It  certainly  does  Sarah's.  It  not  only  crosses  it,  but  finds 
not  unfrequent  egress  through  her  lips. 

And,  meanwhile,  May  is  three  parts  over.  The  24th 
of  that  month  is  reached,  and,  indeed,  is  almost  ended  ; 
for  dinner  is  past,  and  the  girls  and  their  grandmother 
are  loitering  over  their  light  and  leisurely  dessert. 

Their  grandmother  is  an  old  lady  with  a  bright  eye — 
strangely  bright,  considering  that  it  has  wept,  or  been 
supposed  to  weep,  for  a  good-natured  husband,  five  prom- 
ising sons,  and  three  dutiful  daughters — with  a  skin  that 
it  is  still  no  penance,  and  that,  if  tradition  lies  not,  it  was 
once  considered  a  high  treat  to  kiss,  and  with  a  cap 
whose  secret  will  die  with  her. 

"  Granny's  religious  principles  are  slack,"  Sarah  is 
wont  to  say  ;  "  her  morality  is  hazy,  and  in  moments  of 
excitement  I  have  even  known  her  let  fly  an  oath  ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  she  is  thoroughly  clean,  and  she  al- 
ways laughs  at  my  jokes  ;  so  that,  taking  her  all  around, 
I  could  better  spare  a  better  woman.  One  knows  that  if 
she  were  called  upon  for  any  of  the  sublimer  virtues  of 
life,  she  would  be  found  wanting.  But,  after  all,  the 
sublimer  virtues  are  the  thousand-pound  notes  that  one 
seldom  needs  to  change,  and  granny  has  plenty  of  the 
sixpences." 

At  the  present  moment  her  attention  is  absorbed  in 
the  effort,  aided  by  a  cracknel,  to  induce  her  new  pug 


BELINDA.  79 


Punch  to  give  three  cheers  for  the  Queen,  with  the  thor- 
ough mastery  over  which  elegant  accomplishment  he  has 
arrived  credited.  On  the  present  occasion,  however,  this 
talent  seems  inclined  to  hang  fire,  for,  though  in  general 
a  remarkahly  free  barker,  he  is  now,  relatively  to  his  sov- 
ereign, either  disloyally  silent,  or  irrationally  incoherent. 
He  will  give  ten  cheers,  or  one  and  a  half,  or  five  muffled 
ones  and  a  sneeze,  but  he  will  not  give  three. 

"  Granny,"  says  Sarah,  desisting  from  a  vain  effort  to 
make  Slutty  cheer  too,  an  endeavor  which  the  latter  frus- 
trates by  instantly  rolling  over  on  her  back,  and  remain- 
ing in  that  position  until  all  attempt  at  education  is  sus- 
pended— "granny,  do  you  know  that  we  are  going  to 
have  a  long  and  happy  day  at  that  everlasting  Wesenstein 
to-morrow  ?  " 

"  By  all  means,  my  dear  ;  so  as  you  do  not  ask  me  to 
go  with  you." 

"I  believe,"  says  Sarah,  regarding  her  grandmother 
with  an  air  of  cool,  dispassionate  speculation,  "  that  if  we 
were  to  tell  you  that  we  were  going  to  Greenwich  Fair, 
or  the  Argyle  Rooms,  you  would  say,  'By  all  means,  my 
dears  ! '  Only  that  I  am  not  at  all  so  sure  that  in  that 
case  you  would  add,  '  So  as  you  do  not  expect  me  to  go 
with  you ' !  " 

The  old  lady  laughs  pleasantly,  as  if  her  granddaughter 
had  paid  her  a  compliment. 

"  Are  you  going  to  take  your  sweethearts  with  you  ?  " 
asks  she  gayly  ;  "  your  popinjays  ?  No  Punch  !  three 
cheers  !  Nobody  asked  you  to  sneeze  for  the  Queen  !  " 

"  Our  popinjays  ?  "  cries  Sarah,  delighted.  "  Not  mine, 
thank  God  !  By-the-by,  granny,  as  I  have  no  further 
use  for  him,  I  am  thinking  of  arranging  a  marriage  be- 
tween you  and  him.  Your  ages  are  suitable  ;  and  though 
you  have  slightly  the  advantage  in  externals,  he  is  greatly 
your  superior  in  intellect." 


80  BELINDA. 


"  God  bless  my  soul !     No,  thank  you,  child  ! "  re- 
plies Mrs.  Churchill  with  energy,  "  I  prefer  Belinda's." 

"  So  do  we  all ! "  says  Sarah,  with  a  dry  look. 

At  this  last  speech,  Belinda,  who  has  been  growing 
ever  hotter  and  more  restless  since  the  word  "  Wesen- 
stein  "  was  mentioned,  suddenly  leaves  her  seat  under  the 
pretext  of  comforting  Slutty.  Slutty  hates  Punch  and 
his  tricks,  and  the  kudos  that  attends  them,  and  has  now 
squeezed  herself  under  a  piece  of  furniture  to  which,  in 
general,  only  Miss  Watson's  voice  has  power  to  banish 
her,  and  from  beneath  which  there  is  now  nothing  visible 
of  her  but  a  small  spiteful  face,  full  of  mortification  and 
ire.  As  she  firmly  resists  all  Belinda's  blandishing  induce- 
ments to  her  to  come  forth,  though  the  agitated  beat  of 
her  tail  upon  the  floor  proves  that  she  is  not  wholly  un- 
moved by  them,  the  young  girl  desists,  and  passes  into 
the  neighboring  salon,  where,  as  there  is  no  one  to  com- 
ment on  her  actions,  she  at  once  walks  rapidly  to  the 
window,  and  looks  eagerly  down  the  dull  and  empty  street. 
Not  for  long,  however.  Ere  many  moments  have  passed, 
a  hand  is  laid  on  her  shoulder  ;  a  rallying  voice  sounds  in 
her  ear  : 

"  Come  !  he  can  not  be  in  sight  yet !  He  will  surely 
have  the  good  feeling  to  let  us  swallow  our  coffee  in 
peace." 

Belinda  gives  a  great  start,  and  angrily  shakes  off  her 
sister's  touch. 

"  I  can  not  think  how  it  concerns  you  ! "  she  says 
testily,  in  intense  vexation  at  having  been  surprised  on 
the  watch  ;  "  he  does  not  trouble  you  much  !  " 

"That  is  the  rub,"  replies  Sarah  calmly.  "If  he  did, 
my  nose  would  probably  be  flattened  against  the  pane  as 
well  as  yours  :  but  seriously,  I  should  not  mind  how  often 
he  came — not  much,  at  least — not  more,"  in  candid  paren- 
thesis, "than  I  always  hate  seeing  other  people  made  love 


BELINDA.     ,  81 


to,  if  it  seemed  to  lead  to  anything  ;  but,  as  I  live,  I  can 
not  see  that  you  are  a  step  further  advanced  than  you 
were  when  I  spoke  to  you  in  the  Grosse  Garten  three 
weeks  ago.  Come  now,  are  you  ?  " 

For  a  moment  Belinda  is  silent.  Perhaps  she  has  put 
that  question  to  her  own  heart  before  now,  and  been  as 
unable  as  now  to  give  a  satisfactory  answer  to  it. 

Instead  of  replying,  "  What  a  mercy  it  would  be  ! " 
she  says  irritably,  bringing  her  hands  sharply  together  in 
a  wrathful  clasp,  "  If  you  could  be  persuaded  to  mind 
your  own  business,  and  leave  me  to  be  happy  in  my  own 
way." 

"Happy  in  your  own  way,"  repeats  Sarah,  with  a 
shrewd  look.  "  Yes  ;  and  when  he  has  taken  his  twelve 
German  lessons  and  gone  home  to  his  papa,  the  ironmon- 
ger— ironmaster — what  is  he  ? — how  happy  you  will  be  in 
your  own  way  then,  eh  ?  " 

The  other's  hands  unclasp,  her  arms  drop  limply  to 
her  sides  ;  a  sudden  cold  pallor  chases  the  fierce  vermilion 
from  her  cheeks. 

"  I  suppose,"  she  says  slowly,  "  that  there  is  a  sort  of 
coarse  and  brutal  common  sense  in  what  you  say  ;  but  I 
wonder,"  her  voice  breaking  a  little,  "that  it  does  not 
occur  to  even  you,  that  since  I  am  T,  and  not  you — " 

"  Granny  and  I  both  agree,"  interrupts  Sarah,  "  that  it 
is  the  most  tedious  courtship  we  ever  assisted  at.  Gran- 
ny's idee  fixe  is  that  it  should  be  arranged  by  the  1st,  so 
that  he  may  travel  with  us  and  look  after  the  luggage  : 
for  my  own  part,  I  rather  doubt  if  even  after  the  twelve 
lessons  he  will  be  able  to  take  our  tickets  and  order  our 
baths  ;  at  least,"  breaking  into  a  laugh,  "  I  know  that  my 
Schatz  was  not,  though  he  is  in  correspondence  with  half 
the  savants  of  Germany." 

Belinda  has  turned  again  to  the  window,  but,  that  her 
motives  may  be  beyond  suspicion,  she  is  ostentatiously 


BELINDA. 


gazing  in  the  opposite  direction  to  that  whence  Rivers  will 
come.  An  occasional  writhing,  shivering  movement  of 
her  shoulders  alone  betrays  what  suffering  her  sister's 
ruthless  and  irrepressible  rummaging  in  ker  holy  of  holies 
is  causing  her. 

"  We  do  not  blame  him,"  continues  Sarah,  with  a  can- 
did air  ;  "  in  fairness,  I  must  say  that  we  do  not  blame 
him.  He  is  always  trying  to  pour  out  his  poor  little  tale 
like  water  out  of  a  jug  ;  and  you,  for  reasons  best  known 
to  yourself,  are  always  corking  it  back  again.  Mark  -my 
words,"  emphasizing  the  sentence  with  three  pats  on  Slut- 
ty's  chest — Slutty  lying,  as  usual,  reversed  and  Cleopatra- 
like  upon  her  lap,  "  you  will  do  it  once  too  often  !  " 

"  What  shall  I  do  once  too  often  ?  "  cries  poor  Be- 
linda in  an  agonized  voice,  wheeling  suddenly  round  at 
bay.  "  What  do  I  do  ?  If  you  could  only  explain  that 
to  me  !  I  believe,"  beginning  to  falter,  "  that  you  mean 
well ;  I  would — would  try  to  take  any  hints  you  could 
give  me." 

"  I  have  always  told  you  that  your  high  and  mighty 
air  would  be  the  death  of  you,"  rejoins  Sarah,  not  per- 
ceptibly conciliated  by  her  sister's  humility.  "If  you 
could  make  them  up  into  a  parcel  and  toss  them  into  the 
Elbe,  and  perhaps  throw  in  your  high  nose  too,  you  would 
be  a  better  and  a  happier  woman." 

"  But  I  can  not  !  "  very  regretfully. 

"  I  confess,"  says  Sarah,  after  a  pause,  her  eyes  specu- 
latively  fixed  on  the  two  smart  shoes  extended  before  her 
— shoes  whose  unnatural  altitude  of  heel,  arch  of  instep, 
and  crowding  of  lacerated  toes  proclaim  them  of  the 
highest  fashion — "  I  confess  that  I  am  a  little  disappoint- 
ed that  the  news  of  our  approaching  departure  did  not 
bring  him  to  the  point.  I  should  have  thought  that 
when  that  fact  transpired,  not  even  you  could  have  iced 
him  into  silence." 


BELINDA.     -.  83 


"  He  does  not  yet  know  that  we  are  going,"  replies 
Belinda  murmuringly.  "  I  have  not  told  him." 

"  Have  not  you  ?  "  cries  Sarah,  joyfully  leaping  up 
and  beginning  to  frolic  about  on  one  toe.  "  Courage  ! 
Then  our  best  card  is  still  unplayed  !  "  Suddenly  ceasing 
her  frisking,  approaching  her  sister,  and  speaking  with 
great  eagerness  :  "  You  must  tell  him  to-morrow,  at  We- 
senstein.  Choose  a  good  place  ;  well  in  the  wood  if  pos- 
sible, out  of  eye  and  ear  and  Watson  shot ;  be  a  little  de- 
pressed, and  make  him  ask  you  what  is  the  matter  with 
you  ;  if  you  could  let  fall  a  tear  or  two  ?  No  ?  Ah  !  " 
with  a  gesture  of  impatience,  "I  am  sure  you  will  spoil 
the  whole  situation  !  Dear  me  !  "  with  an  accent  of  sin- 
cere regret,  "  what  a  charming  thing  I  could  have  made 
of  it !  " 

"  I  will  tell  him,"  replies  Belinda  meekly,  yet  wincing. 

"  If  it  is  not  brought  to  a  crisis  at  Wesenstein,"  pur- 
sues Sarah  brutally,  "  I  warn  you  that  I  shall  ask  him  his 
intentions.  I  have  been  trying  to  spirit  up  granny  to 
do  it,  but  you  know  how  she  always  shirks  every  duty ; 
it  would  have  come  better  from  her,  but  since  she  will 
not,  I  must.  I  shall  tell  him  that  you  are  wasting  away  ! 
I  wonder,"  with  an  amused  look  at  her  sister's  firm-fleshed, 
healthful  beauty,  "  whether  he  will  be  idiot  enough  to 
believe  it  ?  " 


CHAPTER  IX. 

"  But  for  the  general  award  of  Love, 
The  little  sweet  doth  kill  much  bitterness." 

Miss  WATSON  has  at  length  had  her  will.  The  party 
to  Wesenstein  is  hers  ;  not,  indeed,  as  to  the  defraying 
of  its  expenses,  about  which  she  shows  no  ill-bred  em- 
pressement,  but  in  the  inviting  of  the  guests,  arranging 


84  BELINDA. 


for  their  transport,  etc.  And  as  this  arranging  includes 
the  right  to  bounce  not  only  into  the  sitting-rooms,  which 
is  a  latitude  she  always  allows  herself,  but  into  the  most 
secret  chambers  of  the  invited  guests,  they  begin  to  look 
with  some  eagerness  toward  the  end  of  this  period  of 
license.  It  is  true  that  Miss  Watson  meets  with  a  good 
many  refusals.  The  older-established  among  the  English 
residents  into  whose  private  affairs  her  nose  has  been 
thrust  throughout  the  winter  months,  the  details  of  whose 
butchers'  bills,  servants'  wages,  discreditable  members,  of 
their  family,  she  has  mastered  with  grisly  accuracy, 
combine  in  one  deep  and  unanimous  "No."  Not  less 
emphatic  is  Professor  Forth  in  his  negative,  based  on  the 
plea  of  ill  health.  Nor  do  the  very  direct  questions 
addressed  to  him  as  to  the  nature  and  locale  of  his  ail- 
ments— whether  he  has  anything  wrong  inside  him  ? — 
nor  the  confident  assurance  that  it  is  all  fancy,  and  that 
what  he  needs  is  to  have  his  liver  well  shaken  up,  by  any 
means  avail  to  change  his  decision.  But  with  all  these 
deductions,  there  is  still  left  a  considerable  residuum  of 
new-comers,  who  are  at  the  stage — a  very  brief  and  early 
one — of  thinking  Miss  Watson  an  agreeable  woman  who 
has  seen  a  great  deal  of  the  world,  a  stage  on  which  they 
will  hereafter  look  back  with  indignant  incredulity ;  of 
girls  greedy  for  pleasure,  and  not  fastidious  as  to  the 
source  whence  it  flows,  and  of  handsome,  solid,  German 
soldiers,  ready  to  follow  wherever  battle,  beer,  or  maidens 
lead.  To  these  is,  of  course,  added  Rivers — Rivers  who 
hitherto  has  fled  through  back  doors,  has  squeezed  him- 
self through  attic  windows,  has  bolted  round  corners, 
and  run  like  a  leveret  whenever  his  long-sighted  eyes 
have  caught  the  farthest  glimpse  of  a  black-and-white 
plaid  gown  1  For  the  last  week  this  same  Rivers  has 
groveled  at  the  feet  of  the  black  plaid,  has  told  her  as 
nearly  as  he  can  conjecture  the  amount  of  his  father's 


BELINDA.      C  85 


annual  commercial  gains,  his  sisters'  probable  portions, 
and  whatever  else — there  is  a  good  deal  else — she  may 
please  to  ask  him.  For  does  it  not  rest  with  her  whether, 
during  all  the  distance  that  parts  Dresden  from  Wesen- 
stein,  he  shall  sit  in  glory  and  bliss  in  the  same  carriage 
with  his  mistress,  opposite  to  her,  so  that  her  lightest 
movement  may  be  felt  thrilling  all  through  him,  eye 
drowned  in  eye,  for  ten  or  twelve  delirious  miles?  or, 
parted  from  her,  pine  and  rage  in  separation,  with  some 
senseless,  smirking  doll-face  for  vis-a-vis,  and  only  now 
and  again  catch  distant  frenzying  glimpses  of  his  lady, 
exposed  to  the  coarse  homage  of  insolent  hussar  or  fire- 
eating  Uhlan  ? 

He  has  attained  his  object,  or  he  thinks  so.  The 
morning  has  broken  in  settled  summer  fairness.  He  has 
slept  no  wink  all  night.  He  has  not  broken  his  fast. 
He  is  long,  long  first  at  the  rendezvous.  It  is  in  the 
Ltittichau  Strasse.  For  how  long  he  kicks  his  heels  in 
that  gloomy  thoroughfare  he  never  knows.  He  would 
tell  you  that  many  hours  passed  before — several  other 
unimportant  ciphers  having  in  the  mean  while  packed 
themselves  into  various  vehicles  and  set  off — she  at  length 
comes  stepping  down  the  echoing  stone  stairs  in  her 
lofty,  leisurely  grace,  clad  in  one  of  those  lawny,  lacy 
summer  gowns,  whose  apparently  inexpensive  simplicity 
men  innocently  admire,  and  over  the  bills  for  which 
fathers  and  husbands  wag  their  heads  aghast.  It  is,  in 
fact,  her  best  gown,  far  too  good  for  such  an  excursion, 
and  its  fellow  is  being  thriftily  saved  by  Sarah  for  future 
worthier  London  occasions.  But  to  Belinda  no  occasion 
could  ever  seem  worthier.  She  has  taken  her  seat,  and 
his  one  impulse  is  to  spring  in  after  her.  It  is  only  just 
in  time  that  he  saves  himself  from  this  fatal  error. 

Seeing  that  her  companion,  another  young  English 
girl,  has  preceded  her,  it  follows  that  unless  the  Uhlan 


86  BELINDA. 


who  is  to  make  a  fourth  precedes  him,  the  result  will  be 
that  he,  the  Uhlan,  and  not  Rivers,  will  sit  knee  to  knee 
with  Belinda  through  the  long  drive.  As  this  idea 
strikes  him,  he  takes  his  foot  off  the  step  again  as  if  it 
had  been  made  of  hot  iron,  and  hastily  retreating,  eagerly 
motions  the  other  forward.  But  the  innocent  soldier, 
attributing  this  movement  solely  to  politeness,  and  in 
that  determined  not  to  be  outdone,  smilingly  waves  him 
on,  to  which  Rivers  responds  by  a  more  desperate  back- 
ing. But  as  in  any  contest  of  bows  and  ceremonies  and 
formal  civilities  an  Englishman  must  always  go  to  the 
wall,  the  dispute  ends  in  the  worsting  of  the  person  to 
whom  alone  it  is  of  any  consequence  to  succeed,  who  sees 
himself  hopelessly  excluded  from  the  post  which  he  had 
watched  and  fasted  to  obtain  ;  and  who,  pale,  empty, 
and  miserable,  hurls  himself  into  his  corner  over  against 
the  blooming  miss,  who  has  seen,  understood,  and  re- 
sented his  frantic  efforts  to  avoid  her. 

They  are  off  ;  out  of  the  town  now  ;  stretching  stead- 
ily away  across  the  flat  country,  that  is  now  nothing  but 
one  gigantic  nosegay.  Every  look  they  give  rests  on 
new  flowers.  Every  mouthful  of  air  they  draw  in  is  the 
breath  of  lilacs. 

The  cherry  -  snow  is  indeed  gone,  melted  away  as 
quickly  as  its  cold  prototype  in  thaw.  But  its  crowding 
successors,  the  flushed  apple-blooms,  the  horse-chestnuts 
tardily  breaking  into  pale  spires,  forbid  them  to  remem- 
ber or  deplore  it.  What  mood  could  be  high  or  sweet 
enough  to  match  the  perfumed  summer  mornings  ?  Cer- 
tainly not  Rivers's.  He  has  exchanged  the  stunned  silence 
in  which  he  passed  the  first  two  miles  for  a  wild  gar- 
rulity. He  talks  d  tort  et  d  tr avers.  He  says  foolish 
things,  the  sound  of  which  surprises  even  himself.  He 
insists  on  buttoning  his  miss's  glove  :  a  task  which — cer- 
tainly from  no  pleasure  in  the  employment — his  trem- 


BELINDA.  87 


bling  fingers  are  long  in  accomplishing.  In  fact,  to  be 
exact,  he  never  accomplishes  it  at  all.  For  the  glove 
being  too  small,  and  the  hand  plump,  he  succeeds  at  last 
in  giving  the  latter  such  a  painful  nipping  pinch,  in  the 
effort  to  effect  a  union  between  starting  button  and  dis- 
tant button-hole — not  by  any  means  "  a  lover's  pinch  that 
hurts  and  is  desired" — that  its  owner  angrily  withdraws 
it. 

From  his  garrulity  he  sinks  back  into  a  feverish 
dumbness,  as  apparently  causeless  as  his  former  loqua- 
city. How  can  his  cruel  cold  lady  look  so  calm  and 
sunshiny  under  the  hideous  misadventure  that  has  parted 
them  ?  How  dare  she  listen,  with  that  sweet,  high  smile 
of  hers,  to  her  vis-d-vis's  clumsy  Teuton  compliments? 
And  what  does  he  mean  by  crowding  her  so  ?  Surely  he 
could  give  her  a  little  more  room  !  And  is  she  deaf, 
pray,  that  he  must  approach  his  ugly  face  so  close  to  hers 
in  conversation  ?  Would  not  it  be  well  to  give  him  a 
hint  that  these  are  not  the  manners  to  which  English 
gentlewomen  are  used?  Happily  his  madness  falls  a 
little  short  of  the  execution  of  this  wise  project.  And 
meanwhile,  the  unconscious  Uhlan,  semillant,  pleased  with 
himself,  with  his  position,  with  his  plain  clothes — rare 
luxury  in  which  the  stiff -buckramed  German  soldier  is 
permitted  to  indulge  in  expeditions  of  this  nature — airs 
his  imperfect  English,  and  slips  from  it  continually  back 
into  his  guttural  mother-tongue,  whither  Rivers,  despite 
the  twelve  lessons,  can  not  follow  him,  nor  ascertain  what 
amorous  atrocities  he  may  be  committing  in  it.  He  is 
almost  past  deriving  satisfaction  from  the  perception  of 
how  ill-cut  the  plain  clothes  are,  and  of  how  much  less 

comely  poor  Herr  von looks  in  them  than  he  did 

yesterday  in  his  showy  uniform. 

And  Belinda?  At  first  her  disappointment,  though 
decently  hidden,  had  gone  nigh  to  equaling  his  ;  but  by- 


88  BELINDA. 


and-by  the  reflection  that,  once  at  Wesenstein — two  short 
hours  off — nothing  but  his  own  will  can  keep  him  from 
her  side,  makes  her  resign  herself  peaceably  and  civilly 
to  the  inevitable.  Women  know  how  to  bide  their  time 
better  than  men  do.  They  would  pass  but  ill  and  dis- 
creditably through  life  if  they  did  not.  By-and-by,  being 
but  human  and  female,  she  yields  herself  to  the  influences 
around  her  ;  the  soft  and  sugared  air,  the  joy-drunk  larks, 
the  juicy  grass-fields  thronged  with  bold  dandelions  and 
faint  ladies'-smocks.  What  lady  could  ever  be  sweet  or 
fine  enough  to  deserve  such  a  smock  ? 

Past  the  rape-fields  they  go — rape  so  gloriously  yellow 
that  it  looks  like  sown  sunlight ;  past  the  pious-looking 
little  German  villages — high  red  roofs  gathered  at  the 
church's  knees  ;  through  the  pleasant  freundlich  country, 
where  everything  is  waxing  in  lusty  length.  And  yet 
she  is  glad  when  Wesenstein  is  reached.  Perhaps  she 
would  feel  more  emotion  at  arriving  than  she  does,  did 
she  know  the  rational  and  humane  intention  nourished  by 
Rivers,  and  which  has  kept  him  comparatively  calm  for 
the  last  three  miles,  to  knock  down  the  Uhlan  upon  the 
first  sign  of  an  intention  on  his  part  to  help  Miss  Church- 
ill from  the  carriage. 

But,  happily  for  the  peace  of  the  assemblage,  the  un- 
conscious offender  attributing  to  insular  brutality  Riv- 
ers's  unceremonious  shouldering  of  him  from  the  carriage- 
door,  yields  gracefully  a  privilege  that  he  has  no  particular 
care  to  keep,  and  leaves  to  the  other  undisputed  posses- 
sion of  Belinda's  three  fingers.  They  are  the  last  of  the 
party  to  arrive,  and  so  have  the  advantage  of  finding  pre- 
liminaries over,  and  luncheon  spread  and  tempting  under 
the  trained  linden-trees. 

Above  the  lilac-smothered  cottages,  and  the  cheerful 
Gast-hof,  beetles  up  the  old  white  Schloss  out  of  the  solid 
rock  on  which  it  is  built. 


BELINDA.     ^.  89 


Between  the  Gast-hof  and  the  garden,  where  their 
white  table-cloth  promisingly  glimmers,  runs  a  little  riv- 
er, quickened  and  discolored  by  last  night's  rain.  It  is 
spanned  by  a  homely  wooden  bridge  ;  and  on  this  wood- 
en bridge  Sarah  is  standing,  employed  in  dropping  bits 
of  stick — little  lilac  sprays,  anything  floatable  that  comes 
handy — into  the  earth-reddened  stream  on  one  side,  and 
then  rushing  headlong  over  to  the  other  to  see  them  come 
sailing  and  whirling  through.  In  this  mature  pastime 
she  is  being  helped  by  two  large  hussars  and  a  Gardereiter. 
She  is  in  the  best  of  spirits,  and  has  already  told  them  all 
about  the  Professor,  and  how  delighted  she  is  to  be  rid 
of  him. 

The  rest  of  the  party  are  dispersed  in  summer  saun- 
tering about  the  bowery  village,  all  but  Miss  Watson, 
who,  following  that  God-given  instinct  which  prompts 
the  mole  to  delve,  the  beetle  to  scavenge,  and  the  swal- 
low to  fly,  is  ravaging  everywhere,  red-faced  and  ruth- 
less, making,  marring,  meddling.  She  has  had  a  happy 
and  instructive  drive  with  some  quite  new-comers,  and 
has  succeeded,  to  their  dismay  and  her  own  satisfaction, 
in  extracting  from  them  that  they  have  a  sister  in  a  lu- 
natic asylum.  So  that  it  is  in  high  good -humor  and  con- 
tent that — the  complement  of  guests  being  now  full — 
they  all  sit  down  to  their  homely  feast. 

It  is  true,  that  no  sooner  are  they  seated — seated  as 
their  own  choice,  or  as  the  lurking  inclination  of  any 
two  for  each  other  prompts,  than  their  hostess  bustles 
officiously  round  to  dislodge  them. 

"  Three  men  together  here,  and  two  ladies  there  ! 
Come — come  !  this  will  never  do  ;  we  must  manage  bet- 
ter than  this  !  Mr.  Rivers,  I  must  beg  you  to  fly  to  the 
rescue  :  come  and  part  these  two  ladies  !  " 

In  what  spirit  this  request  is  received  may  be  gath- 
ered from  the  fact  that  Rivers  has  at  last  attained  to  the 


90  BELINDA. 


one  object  and  goal  of  all  his  hot  vigils  and  fasting-days. 
His  wooden  chair  is  drawn  up  as  closely  as  the  legs  of 
both  will  permit  to  Belinda's,  and  on  her  other  hand  he 
has  successfully  arranged  an  ugly  ravenous  fledgling  boy, 
of  whom  not  even  he  can  be  jealous. 

Though  such  is  the  quality  of  Miss  Watson's  voice, 
that  nothing  short  of  an  utterly  broken  drum  could  pre- 
vent its  finding  entrance  into  any  ear,  he  adopts  the  des- 
perate feint  of  not  having  heard,  not  even  when  she  re- 
peats her  order  in  a  sensibly  louder  key. 

"  Had  not  you  better  try  some  one  else  ?  "  says  Sarah 
dryly,  coming  to  the  rescue  ;  "  it  is  odd,  but  he  does  not 
seem  to  hear  !  " 

"I  can  not  have  spoken  loud  enough,"  rejoins  the 
other  with  unconscious  irony.  "  Mr.  Rivers  !  " 

"  You  will  have  to  put  up  with  Herr  von  Breiden- 
bach  ! "  says  Sarah,  this  third  appeal  having  met  with 
the  fate  of  its  predecessors,  glancing  up  at  her  spare  hus- 
sar, who — no  lady  having  more  than  two  sides,  and  his 
brother  soldiers  having  been  too  quick  for  him — is  hang- 
ing lingeringly  over  her  chair-back,  reluctant  altogether 
to  abandon  her  even  for  beer  and  Schinken,  and  having 
just  overtaken  her  last  joke  and  begun  to  roar  at  it.  Un- 
der these  circumstances,  neither  is  he  particularly  keen 
about  obeying  Miss  Watson's  command.  However,  a 
wily  look  from  his  maiden,  promissory  of  far  better 
things  after  luncheon,  sends  him  off  fairly  contented, 
and  the  storm  is  averted. 

"  It  is  sad  for  a  young  man,  being  so  deaf,  is  not 
it  ?  "  says  Sarah,  with  her  innocent  air. 

"Is  it  in  his  family?"  asks  Miss  Watson  eagerly. 
"It  is  in  some  families,  you  know.  In  some  families 
every  member  is  deaf  from  childhood.  All  the  Champ- 
neys  of  Nether-Stoney  are  deaf.  I  must  ask  him  whether 
it  is  in  his  family  ! " 


BELINDA.  91 


And  this  little  squall — after  all  only  the  threat,  not 
the  reality  of  one — is  the  sole  break  in  the  golden  halcy- 
on sunshine  of  what  Rivers,  though  he  ate  next  to  noth- 
ing— and  that  next  to  nothing  may  have  been  horse,  or 
hippopotamus,  for  all  he  knew  to  the  contrary — now  looks 
back  upon  as  the  most  regal  banquet  of  his  life. 

What  banqueting-hall,  indeed,  painted  with  goddesses 
and  fair  sea- women,  could  equal  the  low  linden-roof  above 
their  heads  ?  What  hall- hangings  could  come  nigh  the 
soft  little  red  vine-leaves,  and  the  tiny  tendrils  just  be- 
ginning to  twist  their  airy  fingers  round  the  wooden  trel- 
lis ?  What  chamber-music  could  surpass  that  of  the  full 
brook  and  the  larks  ? 

By-and-by,  it  is  true,  both  are  drowned  in  the  noise 
of  the  ever-waxing  talk  and  laughter.  They  are  almost 
all  young  ;  they  are  out  on  a  spree  ;  they  have  been  hun- 
gry and  now  are  full ;  is  it  any  wonder  that  it  needs 
but  a  very  little  jest  to  set  them  all  off  in  clamorous 
mirth  ? 

There  is  presently  a  Babel  of  tongues.  The  end  of 
Miss  Watson's  story  of  how  she  sent  in  her  card,  and 
finally  forced  her  way  in,  to  the  Grand  Lama  of  Thibet 
— a  tale  which  strangers  regard  as  a  bad  and  glaring 
lie,  but  which  her  acquaintances  feel  to  be  not  only  prob- 
able, but  true — is  lost  in  the  general  din. 

Sarah  is  in  her  glory.  She  has  been  nibbling  marrons 
glacis,  and  teaching  her  soldiers  to  play  bob-cherry  with 
some  fine  forced  fruit  contributed  by  Rivers,  regardless 
of  the  famine  price  he  paid  for  them,  to  tempt  his  lady's 
palate. 

Rewarded  by  the  succ&s  fou  of  this  accomplishment, 
she  proceeds  to  exhibit  several  others,  not  included  in 
the  curriculum  of  an  ordinary  education  ;  the  most  ad- 
mired among  which  is  that  one — not  so  widely  known 
as  its  simple  ingenuity  deserves — of  crossing  the  fore  and 


92  BELINDA. 


middle  fingers,  and  slowly  passing  them  down  the  bridge 
of  the  nose,  thereby  discovering  a  chasm  of  great  depth, 
apparently  parting  the  nose  into  two.  Before  long  there 
is  not  a  soul  at  the  table  whose  fingers  are  not  traveling 
eagerly  down  his  or  her  nose,  some  to  verify  the  discov- 
ery as  new,  some  to  enjoy  it  as  old.  Hussars,  Garderei- 
ters,  Uhlans,  combine  to  cry,  "  Famos ! "  "  Kolossal ! "  and 
when  at  length  chairs  are  pushed  back,  and  the  cherries 
and  the  revel  are  together  ended,  Sarah  finds  her  court 
swelled  by  the  admirers  of  almost  all  the  other  girls,  un- 
able to  resist  the  attractions  of  a  maiden  who,  to  such 
veilchen  Augen  and  such  a  figure,  adds  talents  of  so  va- 
ried and  unusual  an  order. 

They  are  so  occupied  in  thronging  round  her,  and  she 
is  so  obliging  in  promising  to  teach  them,  one  and  all, 
many  more  tricks  by-and-by,  that  Miss  Watson's  bawling 
command  that  they  are  now  all  to  go  over  the  Schloss 
passes  for  some  time  unregarded. 

In  time,  however,  she  collects  them,  the  unwilling  as 
well  as  the  willing — the  former  greatly  preponderate — 
and  sweeping  them  off  out  of  the  sunshine  and  the 
merry  summer  air,  gives  them  into  the  charge  of  a  surly, 
high-flavored,  and  grasping-minded  Yerwalter,  who  leads 
them  through  an  endless  enfilade  of  bare  rooms,  cold  and 
dank  even  on  this  warmly-honeyed  May-day,  and  fleeces 
them  at  the  end. 


CHAPTER  X. 

"  He  tells  her  something 
That  makes  her  blood  look  out." 

Miss  WATSON'S  tyranny,  however,  one  pair  succeeds 
in  evading.  By  a  cautious  and  judicious  loitering  until 
the  tail  of  the  plaid  gown  has  been  seen  safely  to  whisk 


BELINDA.  93 


round  the  corner,  they  find  themselves  free,  absolutely  at 
their  own  disposition,  for  as  long  as  the  Yerwalter's 
windy  narrative  may  last,  and  with  all  the  Schloss  gar- 
den for  their  own — all  its  sunshine,  all  its  shelter,  all  its 
old-world  grace. 

Sun -petted,  defended  from  each  one  of  Heaven's 
rough  winds,  it  lies  at  the  Schloss-foot.  Around  it  rise 
the  woody  hills,  the  humble  low  hills  of  a  flat  country, 
but  now  with  their  humility  made  proud,  with  their 
insignificance  rendered  significant,  by  the  inexpressible 
magnificence  of  spring. 

Into  the  very  core  of  Belinda's  and  Rivers's  happy 
hearts  has  the  spring  spirit  passed.  Too  happy  for  com- 
mon speech,  they  sit  on  a  time-worn  stone  bench,  with  their 
young  and  radiant  eyes  pasturing  on  the  sweet,  still  pros- 
pect ;  the  high  and  ancient  Schloss,  clock-towered  and 
red-roofed,  soaring  out  of  the  plenteous  new  leafage  ;  and 
seen  down  a  vista  of  thick  and  venerable  hedges,  so  ac- 
curately and  squarely  clipped  that  not  a  leaf  projects  from 
the  verdurous  primness,  an  old  stone  Flora,  with  her  lap 
full  of  garden  flowers.  On  the  prospect,  I  say,  their  eyes 
pasture  ;  but  from  it  they  continually  turn  to  each  oth- 
er's faces,  as  being  yet  lovelier  and  more  joyful. 

"  Try  to  be  a  little  depressed  !  "  Crossing  her  secure 
bliss,  Sarah's  worldly-wise  precept  flashes,  only  to  be  con- 
temptuously dismissed.  What  needs  she  any  mean  ruse 
to  gain  him  ? 

For  the  moment,  doubt  and  fear  have  vanished  from 
her  heart,  cast  out  and  slain  by  an  exultant  certainty  of 
joy.  How  dare  she,  looking  in  his  face,  have  any  mean 
and  unworthy  misgivings  as  to  his  being  wholly  hers, 
body  and  soul,  through  all  time,  and  through  whatever 
may  follow  time  ?  How  could  she,  even  if  she  wished  it, 
feign  to  be  low-spirited  ?  she,  in  comparison  with  whose 
high  and  passionate  content  even  the  larks  are  melan- 


94  BELINDA. 


choly  and  the  river  dull?  What  need  have  they  for 
coarse  and  clumsy  words  ?  But  after  all,  words,  though 
coarse  and  clumsy,  are  the  coin  in  which  human  creatures 
must  pay  each  other,  and  failing  in  which,  they  are  often 
bankrupt  for  life. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  Sarah  would  give  much  ap- 
proval to  a  conversation — if  such  it  can  be  called — of  so 
highly  unpractical  a  cast — a  conversation  made  up  of  hot 
sighs,  and  torrid  looks,  and  broken  syllables  of  ecstasy  ; 
but  in  which  there  is  no  most  distant  allusion  to  either 
priest  or  altar. 

It  is  broken  in  upon  before  it  has  reached  a  more  artic- 
ulate stage  by  the  voices  of  the  Schloss-seers,  who,  their 
task  happily  accomplished,  every  cold  room  and  bad  daub 
faithfully  seen,  are  now  let  loose,  like  schoolboys  at  noon, 
upon  the  silent  garden. 

"  Like  to  a  moving  vintage  down  they  came, 
Crowned  with  green  leaves,  and  faces  all  on  flame ; 
All  madly  dancing  through  the  pleasant  valley, 
To  scare  thee,  Melancholy.'1 

In  a  moment  there  is  not  a  trim  walk  or  finely-graveled 
alley  that  is  not  alive  and  noisy  with  jokes  and  merri- 
ment. They  intercept  the  view  of  the  Flora.  They  steal 
the  cowslips  and  little  white  saxifrage  that  grow  on  the 
sternly-prohibited  grass.  It  is  impossible  to  escape  their 
laughter  and  their  eyes.  They  are  everywhere.  More 
universally  pervasive  than  any  one  else,  more  turbulent, 
more  wildly  hilarious  are  Sarah  and  her  little  court.  But 
yet  there  is  a  method  in  her  madness,  as  her  sister  has 
soon  occasion  to  discover  ;  for,  protected  by  the  noise  of 
voices  round  her,  she  presently  draws  Belinda  aside,  to 
whisper  in  the  hardest,  soberest,  common -sense  voice, 
"  Has  he  spoken  ?  " 

Belinda,  thus  suddenly  dragged  down  from  the  empy- 


BELINDA,      v..  95 


rean,  shrinks  wincingly  away  without  answering  ;  but  in 
vain.  "  Has  he  ?  "  repeats  the  other  resolutely,  taking 
hold  of  her  wrist  in  detention  ;  and  as  a  faint  unwilling 
head-shake  confirms  the  suspicion  she  already  nourishes, 
"  More  shame  for  him  !  "  she  says  quickly  ;  "  try  the  wood." 

There  is  no  time  for  more.  Next  moment  she  is  off — 
a  frolicking  madcap — with  her  hussars.  If  Rivers  had 
overheard  her — for  one  dreadful  moment  the  thought 
flashes  across  Belinda,  "  Is  it  possible  ?  " — he  could  hardly 
have  worded  his  next  sentence  differently. 

"  What  a  bedlam  they  have  made  of  this  !  "  he  says, 
casting  an  irritated  glance  round  on  the  Bacchic  crew ; 
"  shall  we  try  the  wood  ?  " 

Five  minutes  ago  she  would  have  assented  gladly,  not 
less  thankful  than  he  to  escape  from  the  empty  din  ;  but 
now  the  consciousness  of  the  coarse  and  business-like  in- 
tent with  which,  did  she  comply,  she  would  be  seeking 
those  innocent  shades,  makes  her  answer  with  almost  all 
her  old  coldness : 

"  I  think  we  do  very  well  here  !  " 

He  does  not  press  his  request ;  only  that  look  of  blank 
disappointment,  that  she  knows,  comes  like  a  creeping, 
chilly  fog  across  his  passionate  fair  face.  He,  too,  is  pre- 
cipitated from  the  heights.  They  walk  stupidly  along, 
side  by  side,  for  a  space.  Afterward  they  reflect,  in 
bitter  looking  back,  that  they  must  have  wasted  quite  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  of  their  one  high  holiday.  Not  more 
than  a  quarter,  however.  By  the  end  of  that  time  they 
have  twice  met  Miss  Watson,  and  been  closely  questioned 
by  her  as  to  what  they  were  talking  about.  Once,  in- 
deed, the  better  to  investigate  this,  she  has  joined  them 
for  several  paces,  and  would  probably  have  remained 
with  them,  had  not  the  sight  of  another  tete-d-tete  that 
looked  even  more  absorbing  than  theirs  ravished  her 
awav  to  disturb  it. 


96  BELINDA. 


No  sooner  is  her  broad  back  averted,  than  "  You  were 
right,"  says  Belinda,  turning  to  the  young  man  with  a 
humorous  yet  trembling  smile,  "  the  wood  is  best." 

"  Then,  for  God's  sake,  come  there  at  once,  or  she  will 
be  after  us ! "  he  cries,  with  a  hot  and  tragic  eagerness 
ludicrously  disproportioned  to  the  occasion  that  has  called 
it  forth. 

She  does  not  now  need  to  be  twice  bidden,  and  away 
they  speed,  casting  apprehensive  glances  over  their 
shoulders,  glances  that  see  black  plaid  gowns  in  'every 
harmless  bush,  until  the  safe  covert  of  the  wood  is 
reached. 

That  is  not  long.  It  is  only  a  few  paces  off,  just  be- 
yond the  garden.  And  yet,  near  and  accessible  as  it  is, 
none  of  the  revelers  have  as  yet  divined  it.  It  has,  in- 
deed, a  too-much-frequented  air,  of  which  the  well-beaten 
pathway  tells  ;  but,  for  the  time,  it  is  silent  and  safe. 

She  has  sat  down,  a  little  quick-breathed  from  her  run 
— they  had  even  descended  to  running — on  the  pathside 
grass,  and  he  has  flung  all  his  supple  long  length  at  her 
feet. 

"  So  we  are  alone  again,"  he  says,  drawing  a  heavy, 
sighing  breath.  "  My  life  is  now  one  long  manoeuvre  to 
be  alone  with  you  ;  and  how  seldom  I  succeed  ! " 

She  laughs  nervously.  With  whom  but  himself  does 
it  lie  to  command  her  company  while  life  lasts  ?  She  has 
no  longer  the  heavenly  confident  certainty  that  blessed 
her  in  the  garden.  She  has  changed  it  for  a  hot  and 
doubting  unrest  ;  for  an  avoiding,  and  yet  at  the  same 
time  for  a  contradictory  craving  to  meet  and  answer  those 
madly  asking  eyes.  Why  is  it  that  the  eyes  alone  ask  ? 

"Perhaps  it  is  as  well  for  you,"  she  says,  with  a 
tremulous  brusqueness. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  asks,  speaking  hardly 
above  a  whisper  ;  already  the  dread  that  he  has  advanced 


BELINDA.  97 


too  far,  and  that  for  the  hundredth  time  she  is  going  to 
freeze  him  back  again,  beginning  to  stay  the  beating  of 
his  leaping  heart. 

"  I  mean,"  she  says,  forming  the  words  with  immense 
difficulty,  and  in  a  tone  that  to  herself  sounds  dry  and 
forbidding,  "that  perhaps  you  would  not  find  the  charm 
of  tete-d-tetes  with  me  increase  in  the  same  proportion  as 
their  frequency." 

"  Will  you  try  me  ? "  He  can  not  speak  above  a 
whisper  now.  How  is  it  likely  that  he  should,  when  his 
burning  heart  has  sprung  up  into  his  throat  and  is  chok- 
ing him?  Has  not  he  thrown  the  die,  upon  which  his 
universe  turns  ? 

But  to  her,  his  four  words  have  an  ambiguous  sound 
that  may  mean  all  or  nothing.  How,  then,  can  she  an- 
swer them  ? 

There  is  a  silence.  So  hushed  and  sleeping  are  all  the 
winds  that  not  even  any  one  of  the  young  leaves  above 
their  heads  rubs,  slightly  rustling,  against  another.  If 
those  leaves,  or  the  flowers  on  which  they  lean,  or  the 
birds  of  heaven  could  but  have  been  interpreters  between 
him  and  her  !  She  has  taken  off  her  gloves,  the  better  to 
pull  the  fresh  grasses  near  her,  and  her  right  hand  now 
lies  palm  upward  on  her  knee.  Upon  it  his  eyes,  sinking 
for  a  moment  from  her  face,  have  greedily  fixed  them- 
selves. What  could  not  those  five  slight  fingers  give 
him,  if  they  would  ? 

"  Why  are  you  looking  at  my  hand  ?  "  she  asks,  laugh- 
ing unsteadily.  "Can  you  tell  me  whether  I  have  a 
good  line  of  life  ?  do  I  live  long  ?  am  I  happy  ?  do  I " — 
"  marry,"  she  is  going  to  say,  but  she  stops  herself — "  is 
there  any  great  misfortune  or  dangerous  illness  in  store 
for  me?"  She  is  talking  rapidly  and  d  bdtons  rompus, 
feeling  that  she  must  find  words  of  some  kind,  no  matter 
what,  to  fill  up  that  too  pregnant  silence ;  feeling  that 
5 


98  BELINDA. 


the  cool-breathed  wood  is  stifling,  and  that  if  she  pause 
for  one  moment  her  tears  will  have  way  and  forever  dis- 
grace her. 

For  all  answer,  his  heart-hunger  mastering  him,  the 
poor  boy  fastens  on  the  hand  of  which  she  speaks.  There 
is  a  singing  in  his  ears  and  a  fog  before  his  eyes  ;  but  he 
has  it.  In  his  own  shaking  fingers  he  holds  that  sacred 
palm,  that  never  before,  save  in  meaningless  comings  and 
goings,  has  he  touched.  In  all  its  satin  warmth  and 
smoothness,  it  lies  in  his.  Will  he  ever  let  man  or -devil 
rob  him  of  it?  He  would  tell  you  "No."  So  the  su- 
preme moment  has  come,  and  she  recognizes  it. 

"  Do  you  see  that  I  am  to  take  a  long  journey  ? "  she 
says,  stooping  her  quivering  face  over  their  two  locked 
hands. 

What  more  propitious  moment  could  even  Sarah 
choose  in  which  to  tell  him  of  their  departure  ?  But  she 
does  not  think  of  Sarah. 

For  a  moment  he  seems  not  to  take  in  the  meaning 
of  her  words.  Is  there  room  in  all  his  seeing,  hearing, 
understanding,  for  aught  but  the  one  surpassing  fact  that 
his  lady  has  deigned  at  last  to  lay  her  hand  in  his,  and 
that  her  starry  eyes,  soft,  merciful,  passionate,  are,  through 
a  splendid  curtain  of  tears,  bent  on  his  own  ? 

After  a  while,  "Are  you  going  away  ?"  he  says  misti- 
ly. Even  yet  words  come  but  strangely  to  him,  and  his 
head  swims. 

"Yes,"  she  answers,  she,  too,  scarce  knowing  what 
she  speaks ;  "  the  cherry-blossoms  are  gone,  and  the  lilacs 
will  soon  go,  and  so  must  we  ! "  Often  beforehand  has 
she  rehearsed  the  scene  in  which  she  is  to  tell  him  of  her 
going.  Imagination  has  tricked  it  out  in  various  shapes 
and  colors,  but  the  reality  is  unlike  them  all. 

He  expresses  neither  regret  nor  surprise — he  expresses 
nothing.  He  only  lifts  the  long  lily  hand  that  he  holds, 


BELINDA.  99 


and  laying  its  palm  against  his  burning  mouth,  softly 
passes  his  lips  to  and  fro  over  the  little  fair  lines  in  which 
her  history  is  written. 

Where  is  his  timidity  now  ?  It  was  only  her  displeas- 
ure that  had  ever  made  him  afraid  ;  and  even  he  can  see 
that  there  is  no  displeasure  here.  She  is  pale,  indeed,  but 
it  is  with  the  pallor  of  conquering  passion  ;  and  very  still, 
but  it  is  the  stillness  of  one  who,  looking  up  in  awful 
joy,  sees  the  dawn  of  a  superb  new  world  breaking  upon 
her. 

"  Are  you  sorry  ?  "  she  says,  with  a  half -sob.  "  You 
do  not  tell  me  whether  you  are  sorry." 

He  is  no  longer  lying  at  her  feet.  He  is  kneeling  in 
his  beautiful  glad  manhood  at  her  knee. 

"  Sorry ! "  he  repeats,  with  a  sort  of  ecstatic  scorn. 
"  Why  should  I  be  sorry  ?  It  is  only  you  who  can  ever 
make  me  sorry  again  !  " 

So  it  has  come.  For  a  moment  she  closes  her  eyes,  as 
one  faint  with  a  bliss  whose  keenness  makes  it  cross  the 
border-land  and  become  pain,  and  so  is  gathered  into  his 
strenuous  embrace. 

For  one  second  she  lies  on  his  heart.  For  one  second 
the  breath  of  her  sweet  sighs  stirs  his  hair.  Their  faces 
are  nearing  each  other  slowly,  in  the  luxury  of  a  passion- 
ate delay,  to  make  yet  more  poignant  the  pleasure  of  their 
supreme  meeting  at  last,  when — 

"  Mr.  Kivers  !  Mr.  Rivers  !  " 

What  horrid  sound  is  this  that  is  breaking  into  and 
murdering  the  divine  quiet  of  the  wood  ?  that  is  break- 
ing into  and  murdering  their  diviner  union  ?  That  sound 
once  silenced,  the  wood  will  return  to  its  stillness ;  but 
when  to  them  will  that  moment  ever  return  ?  When  will 
that  begun  embrace  be  ended  ? 

For  one  instant  they  remain  paralyzed  and  uncom- 
prehending in  each  other's  arms  ;  then,  as  the  voice  comes 


100  BELINDA. 


again,  the  unmistakable  brazen  voice,  from  which  in  less 
crucial  moments  they  have  so  often  fled  in  panic  aversion, 
comes  nearer  and  louder,  in  obviously  quick  approach  to 
them,  they  spring  apart,  and  stand  dazed  and  panting  in 
wild-eyed  consternation  that  the  cruel  work-a-day  world 
has  so  early  thrust  itself  again  upon  them,  and  that  their 
heavenly  trance  is  broken. 

Belinda  is  the  first  to  recover  the  full  use  of  her 
senses. 

"It  is  she!"  says  the  girl,  breathing  quick  and  short, 
and  putting  up  her  trembling  hands  to  her  bonnet  and 
hair,  to  insure  that  all  is  neat  and  tight  and  unbetraying. 
"  We  might  have  known  that  she  would  have  hunted  us 
down  ! " 

He  does  not  answer.  Perhaps  his  intoxication  was 
deeper  than  hers,  and  that  he  has  more  ado  thus  suddenly 
to  shake  it  off.  Perhaps  the  rage  of  that  lost  kiss — of 
his  arms  emptied  of,  as  soon  as  filled  with,  his  heart's  de- 
sire— makes  sight  and  hearing  still  thick. 

"Mr.  Rivers  !     Miss  Churchill  !     Mr.  Rivers  !  " 

How  loud  the  voice  is  now  !  It  must  be  only  just 
round  the  next  corner ;  and  a  heavy  foot  is  audible,  ac- 
companying it. 

"  We  had  better  go  and  meet  her,"  says  Belinda  des- 
perately ;  and  they  go. 

"  So  here  you  are  ! "  cries  Miss  Watson  cheerfully, 
coming  into  view,  evidently  en  nage  from  the  speed  of  her 
chase.  "  What  a  hunt  I  have  had  for  you  !  Did  not  you 
hear  me  calling  ?  I  called  quite  loud.  Where  have  you 
been  hiding  ?  " 

"  Do  you  want  us  ? "  asks  Belinda,  modulating  her 
trembling  voice  with  excessive  care  ;  and,  after  all  her 
pains,  wondering  whether  it  sounds  as  extraordinary  to 
her  interlocutor  as  it  does  to  herself. 

"  I  have  been  collecting  everybody,"  cries  the  other, 


BELINDA.  101 


fanning  herself.  "I  think,"  smiling,  "that  I  have  col- 
lected everybody  now.  I  want  us  all  to  keep  together." 

"  Why  should  we  herd  together  in  a  drove  ?  Are  we 
Cook's  tourists  ?  "  asks  Rivers,  speaking  for  the  first  time, 
and  in  a  tone  of  dogged  brutality,  looking  murderously 
at  her.  In  his  face  is  clearly  expressed  the  sentiment  of 
Balaam  :  "  I  would  I  had  a  sword  in  my  hand,  for  then 
would  I  slay  thee  !  " 

"  I  always  keep  my  parties  together !  "  replies  Miss 
"Watson,  still  smiling.  "  It  is  so  much  more  sociable ! 
It  spoils  a  party  to  break  it  up.  When  I  was  in  the  Holy 
Land  we  went  a  picnic  to  Bethabara,  twenty -five  of  us 
on  donkeys,  and  we  all  kept  together.  If  we  all  keep 
together,  there  will  be  no  difficulty  about  collecting  at 
starting." 

"  We  are  not  going  yet !  "  cries  the  young  man,  for  a 
moment  forgetting  himself,  and  betrayed  into  a  tone  of 
passionate  apprehension. 

"  Well,  not  immediately,  of  course.  There  will  be 
plenty  of  time  to  explore  this  wood  a  little,  if  you  feel 
inclined.  Whose  wood  is  it?  The  King's,  eh?  Not 
much  in  the  way  of  timber  ;  but  then  there  never  is  much 
in  the  way  of  timber  in  a  German  wood.  Where  does 
this  path  lead  to — have  you  any  idea  ?  What  do  you  say 
to  following  this  path  a  little,  to  see  where  it  leads  to  ?  " 

They  have  fallen  into  a  stupid  silence.  That  paralysis 
of  the  will  which  overtakes  all  upon  whom  Miss  Watson 
bestows  her  company,  has  seized  them  with  a  numbing 
force  proportioned  to  their  frenzied  inward  revolt.  She 
drives  them  before  her,  unresisting,  through  the  wood. 

"Well?"  says  Sarah,  in  a  tone  of  the  keenest  and 
most  urgent  interrogation.  It  is  night,  and  they  are  at 
home  again.  The  long  twilight  still  lies  on  the  city,  but 
the  hour  is  latish.  The  two  girls  have  been  deposited 


102  BELINDA. 


at  their  house  in  the  Liittichau  Strasse,  and  are  climbing 
the  cold  stone  stairs  to  their  apartment.  "  Well  ?  " 

Belinda's  answer  is  to  quicken  her  pace  and  race  up 
the  remaining  steps. 

"  Two  can  play  at  that  game,"  says  Sarah,  springing 
after  her,  active  as  a  cat,  and  facing  her  again  on  the 
landing.  "Well?" 

But  before  she  has  extracted  any  more  answer  than 
before,  Tommy  has  opened  the  door  of  the  etage  and 
admitted  them, 

"Well,  granny,"  cries  Sarah,  marching  briskly  into 
the  salon,  blinking  a  little  from  the  sudden  light,  taking 
the  old  lady's  smooth  face  in  both  hands,  and  giving  it  a 
sounding  kiss,  "  here  we  are  !  We  have  had  a  very  happy 
day,  and  I  am  engaged,  more  or  less,  to  three  people, 
By-the-by,  they  are  all  going  to  call  to-morrow." 

"  I  am  delighted  to  hear  it,  I  am  sure,  my  dear,  if  it 
amuses  you,"  replies  Mrs.  Churchill,  placidly  rearranging 
the  dainty  tulles  and  laces  that  her  granddaughter's  em- 
brace had  ruffled  ;  "  but  I  think  I  have  heard  something 
like  it  once  or  twice  before." 

"  And  Belinda  is  not  engaged  at  all ! "  continues 
Sarah  indignantly,  looking  eagerly  toward  her  sister  to 
see  whether  this  direct  statement  does  not  call  forth  any 
disclaimer.  But  none  comes. 

"  You  do  not  say  so  ? "  rejoins  Mrs.  Churchill,  in  a 
tone  of  civil  cut  tepid  interest,  stifling  a  slight  yawn. 
She  does  not  care  much  about  Belinda,  who  does  not 
amuse  her,  while  the  "Daudet,"  from  whose  pages  her 
grandchildren's  entrance  has  aroused  her,  does. 

"  Is  it  possible,"  says  Sarah,  advancing  with  a  threat- 
ening gesture  to  her  sister — "  do  you  dare  to  look  me  in 
the  face  and  tell  me  that  you  have  not  brought  him  up 
to  the  point  after  all?" 

Still  silence,  and  a  look  toward  the  door  suggestive  of 


BELINDA.  103 


meditated  evasion  by  it.  But  this  move  the  other  antici- 
pates by  placing  herself  between  Belinda  and  all  means 
of  exit. 

"  Did  you  take  him  to  the  wood  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Did  you  tell  him  we  were  going  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"And  nothing  came  of  it  ?  "  cries  Sarah  in  a  tone  of 
such  profound  and  unfeigned  stupefaction  that  Belinda, 
though  certainly  at  this  moment  not  mirthfully  minded, 
breaks  into  a  laugh.  "  Bless  my  soul,  what  stuff  can  you 
both  be  made  of  ?  Granny,  what  stuff  can  they  be  made 
of?" 

But  granny  has  gone  back,  true  as  the  needle  to  the 
Pole,  to  her  novel,  and  declines  to  take  any  further  part 
beyond  a  slight  shrug  in  her  granddaughter's  affairs. 

"Well,  you  know  our  agreement,"  continues  Sarah, 
beginning  to  walk  up  and  down  in  a  fervid  excitement, 
that  contrasts  with  the  elder  woman's  phlegm ;  "  you 
know  our  agreement  :  to-morrow — you  may  think  I  am 
joking,  but  I  assure  you  that  I  never  was  more  in  earnest 
in  my  life — to-morrow  I  ask  him  his  intentions." 

A  charming  flickering  smile  breaks  like  moonlight  on 
water  over  Belinda's  face. 

"  I  give  you  leave  !  "  she  says  in  a  voice  that  though 
low  and  tremulous  is  distinct. 

Then,  vanquishing  all  her  junior's  efforts  to  detain 
her,  pushing  indeed  impetuously  past  her,  she  flies  to  her 
own  room  and  double-locks  herself  in  ;  nor  do  all  Sarah's 
plaintive  pipings  through  the  key-hole  and  angry  rattlings 
of  the  lock  avail  to  dislodge  her. 


104:  BELINDA. 


CHAPTER  XL 

"The  flower  that  smiles  to-day, 

To-morrow  dies ; 
All  that  we  wish  to  stay 

Tempts,  and  then  flies. 
What  is  this  world's  delight  ? 
Lightning  that  mocks  the  night, 

Brief  even  as  bright." 

HAD  Miss  Watson's  eye  been  glued  to  her  spyglass, 
as  for  six  or  eight  out  of  the  twenty-four  hours  it  invari- 
ably is,  and  as,  strange  to  say,  it  is  not  about  four  o'clock 
in  the  ensuing  afternoon,  she  would  have  seen  Belinda 
Churchill  setting  off  for  a  walk  alone.  Humanly  speak- 
ing, not  thirty  seconds  would  have  elapsed  before  that 
lady  would  have  been  across  the  street  and  down  it  to 
ask  why  alone  ?  why  not  with  her  sister  ?  and  why  not 
with  the  dogs?  The  dogs  ask  the  same  question.  A 
Dresden  walk  indeed,  with  their  poor  little  snouts  em- 
bedded in  muzzles,  is  not  by  any  means  the  same  thing 
as  an  English  one — free  to  dogs  and  men  as  English  air  ; 
but  such  as  it  is,  it  is  better  than  nothing.  With  a  muzzle 
one  can  still  scamper,  and  even  give  mutilated  sniffs  here 
and  there.  The  prospect  of  a  walk  is  the  one  thing  that  re- 
stores to  its  pristine  hyacinthine  curl  Slutty's  tail,  which 
ever  since  the  arrival  of  Punch  has  limply  drooped  in  envy 
and  dejection  ;  and  as  for  Punch,  there  is  no  number  of 
times  that  he  would  not  bark  for  the  Queen,  for  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, for  the  devil  if  required,  in  order  to  attain  it.  To-day 
they  both  meet  with  an  abstracted  yet  peremptory  refusal. 

"  I  am  going  to  the  Grosse  Garten,  Sarah,"  says  Be- 
linda, giving  this  piece  of  information  in  a  not  very  as- 
sured voice,  and  apparently  grateful  to  the  numberless 
buttons  of  her  gloves  for  giving  her  an  excuse  for  bend- 
ing her  head  over  them. 


BELINDA.  1Q5 


"  Are  you  ? "  answers  the  other,  carelessly ;  then,  as 
something  in  her  sister's  manner  reveals  to  her  how  preg- 
nant with  import  is  the  walk  of  which  she  speaks,  adds 
in  quite  another  tone,  and  with  an  accent  of  the  liveliest 
sympathy  :  "  My  blessing  go  with  you.  How  I  wish  I 
could  be  behind  a  tree  to  hear  how  he  does  it !  But, 
after  all,"  with  a  shrug,  "in  these  cases  there  is  never 
much  variety  ;  they  all  say  pretty  much  the  same  thing  ; 
they  have  no  imagination." 

As  Belinda  reaches  the  door  it  is  opened  by  Tommy, 
for  whom  Sarah  has  just  rung. 

"Now,  Tommy,"  says  she,  addressing  the  boy  with 
an  extremely  admonitory  air,  "  if  three  German  gentle- 
men come  to  call  this  afternoon,  mind  that  you  do  not 
admit  them  all  at  once.  If  a  second  comes  before  the 
first  is  gone,  you  must  tell  him  that  I  am  engaged,  and 
that  he  must  call  again  later.  Do  you  understand  ? — one 
at  a  time." 

She  is  still  impressing  upon  the  page's  ductile  mind 
the  all-importance  of  letting  in  her  admirers  singly,  when 
Belinda  passes  out  of  hearing. 

Along  the  street  she  goes.  One  side  of  it  is  in  burn- 
ing sunshine,  the  other  in  deep  shadow.  It  seems  to  her 
an  emblem  of  the  difference  between  her  life  before  and 
after  yesterday.  Why  did  not  she  bring  the  dogs  ?  So 
royally  rich  in  happiness  herself,  why  should  not  she 
toss  what  crumbs  she  can  to  any  such  of  God's  poor  crea- 
tures as  ask  her  ? 

The  memory  of  Slutty's  eyes  imploringly  bulging,  and 
of  Punch's  disappointed  back  as  he  trotted  tamely  away 
to  his  cushion,  returns  to  her  with  a  sort  of  remorse. 
She  is  glad  when  she  has  passed  through  the  town  and 
reached  the  Grosse  Garten  ;  glad  to  see  the  long,  broad, 
green  drives  quietly  stretching  away ;  glad  to  have  left 
the  city  noises  behind  her.  And  yet  even  they  have 


106  BELINDA. 


sounded  melodiously  to  her  to-day.  There  is  perhaps 
only  one  sound  in  the  whole  world  that  would  not  now 
echo  agreeably  on  her  ear — viz.,  Miss  Watson's  voice  ; 
and  even  toward  Miss  Watson  how  faint  and  lessening  is 
her  ill-will !  It  is  true  that  she  continued  to  bestow  her 
company  upon  them  yesterday  for  the  remainder  of  the 
afternoon  ;  it  is  true  that  by  her  tyrannic  overruling  they 
were  sent  home  in  different  vehicles  ;  but  could  even  she 
prevent  their  one  moment  snatched  at  parting,  with  time 
for  but  a  sentence  in  it — and  that  sentence  such  a  prayer 
to  her  to  meet  him  here  to-day  ?  After  to-day  she  will 
give  Miss  Watson  leave  to  thrust  herself  and  her  impor- 
tunities between  them  if  she  can.  As  she  makes  this 
reflection  she  smiles.  I  think  she  walks  along  smiling. 

The  Grosse  Garten  is  not  very  frequented ;  but  now 
and  then  she  passes  a  couple  of  loiterers,  a  single  man  or 
woman,  a  nurse  and  child.  She  pities  them  all  from  the 
bottom  of  her  heart :  not  one  of  them  is  going  to  a  tryst 
with  Rivers.  She  has  reached  the  rendezvous  now,  a 
bench  beside  the  Teich  ;  the  dull  and  stagnant  pool 
where  the  swans  are  royally  riding  in  the  sunshine.  He 
is  not  here,  he  has  not  come  yet.  She  is  the  first  at  the 
tryst.  A  slight  pang  of  disappointment  shoots  across 
her  ;  but  in  a  moment  is  stilled  again.  Probably  in  her 
eagerness  she  has  walked  more  quickly  than  is  usual  with 
her.  Probably  she  has  taken  less  time  than  she  calcu- 
lated for.  She  looks  at  her  watch.  It  still  wants  five 
minutes  to  the  appointed  hour.  She  sits  down  on  the 
bench  to  wait,  and  her  eyes  fall  on  the  pool.  How 
crowded  with  green  reflections  it  is  !  how  different  from 
the  weak  and  pinched  leafage  of  three  weeks  ago,  when 
she  and  Sarah  last  sat  here  !  It  has  gathered  all  the 
horse-chestnuts  into  its  bosom  ;  fans  and  bloom-spikes, 
you  can  see  them  all  again  as  plainly  as,  sometimes  more 
plainly  than,  in  the  reality  ;  wherever,  that  is  to  say,  the 


BELINDA.      ^  107 


swans'  webs'  oaring  have  not  broken  up  the  mirror  into 
bright  shivers.  The  remembrance  of  her  last  walk  here 
with  Sarah  brings  back  also  the  remembrance  of  their 
talk  ;  of  Sarah's  advice  to  her  to  hurry  the  pace.  The 
recollection  brings  a  smile  of  happiness,  and  of  pride  too, 
over  her  face.  She  has  used  no  manoauvres,  she  has  de- 
scended to  no  tricky  coquetries  ;  and  yet  could  even  Sa- 
rah have  won  him  more  wholly  than  she  ? 

It  must  be  half-past  four  now.  Again  she  takes  out 
her  watch.  Yes,  it  is  now  five  minutes  over  the  half -hour  ; 
but  then  probably  her  watch  is  fast.  It  always  gains. 
Reassured  afresh,  she  patiently  resumes  her  waiting.  The 
bench  on  which  she  is  sitting  is  almost  exactly  opposite 
the  spot  where  on  the  1st  of  May  he  had  thrown  her  his 
intercepted  nosegay.  At  the  thought  she  smiles  again  ; 
and  this  time  it  must  be  broadly,  for  a  stranger  passing 
by  looks  hard  and  inquiringly  at  her,  as  though  imagin- 
ing that  her  smile  was  a  recognition  of  and  greeting  to 
himself. 

In  a  second  she  is  grave  again.  This  place  is  too  pub- 
lic ;  when  he  comes  they  will  seek  one  of  the  more  pri- 
vate paths.  When  he  comes  ?  But  he  is  not  come  yet  ! 
Why  does  not  he  come  ? 

She  turns  her  head  anxiously  in  the  direction  whence 
she  expects  him  to  appear,  a  creeping  disquietude  begin- 
ning, despite  herself,  to  invade  her  heart.  Is  it  possible 
that  she  can  have  mistaken  his  directions  ?  Is  it  possible 
that,  as  she  is  waiting  expectantly  for  him  here,  so  may 
he  be  waiting  expectantly  for  her  in  some  other  corner  of 
the  large  pleasure-gardens  ?  But  she  dismisses  the  idea. 
Did  not  his  few  words  drop,  distinct  and  clear  as  articu- 
late words  could  do,  into  her  ear  ?  Has  not  she  been  say- 
ing them  over  to  herself  ever  since  ?  There  is  nothing 
for  it  but  patience. 

Again  she  fixes  her  eyes,  not  so  untroubled  as  at  first, 


108  BELINDA. 


upon  the  Teich,  the  swan-house,  the  swans.  To  the  lat- 
ter a  child  is  throwing  bread  ;  a  homely  burgher  couple 
have  stopped  to  applaud.  In  the  fostering  sunshine  the 
horse-chestnut  leaves  seem  to  grow  momently  larger  and 
greener  as  she  looks.  Why  does  not  he  come  ?  A  sense 
of  hurt  maiden  dignity,  of  hot  and  cruel  shame  at  being 
thus  made  to  appear  so  far  the  more  eager  of  the  two  ; 
at  being  kept  thus  long  and  unworthily  waiting  at  her 
first  love-rendezvous,  has  come  to  complicate  and  intensify 
her  anxiety.  In  all  the  mental  pictures  that  through  her 
disturbed  and  tossing  night  she  has  drawn  of  this  meet- 
ing, the  one  contingency  that  has  never  crossed  her  mind 
as  most  distantly  possible  is,  that  he  should  be  a  defaulter 
from  it ;  he,  whose  mad  over-eagerness  to  fulfill  any  en- 
gagement in  which  she  is  to  have  a  part  has  over  and 
over  again  kept  him  raging  up  and  down  the  Ltittichau 
Strasse  for  hours  and  hours  in  rain  and  shine,  in  fervid 
waiting,  until  the  time  has  come  when  he  may  decently 
make  his  appearance.  And  to-day  he  is  already  half  an 
hour  late  !  It  is  impossible — incredible  !  And  yet  if  any 
untoward  accident  had  occurred  to  prevent  him,  surely  he 
would  have  written  !  Perhaps  even  now  there  is  a  note 
awaiting  her  at  home.  Goaded  by  this  thought,  she 
takes  two  feverish  steps  in  the  direction  of  a  return  ;  then, 
arrested  by  the  reflection  that  he  may  arrive  in  her  ab- 
sence and  find  her  gone,  she  stops  in  painful  irresolution. 
To  sit  still  and  look  at  the  swans  any  longer  is  at  all  events 
impossible. 

She  walks — but  with  how  different  a  tread  to  that 
with  which  she  had  at  first  approached  the  spot ! — she 
walks  a  little  away  ;  not  so  far  as  to  lose  the  bench,  to 
which  her  hopes  still  cling,  from  sight,  but  far  enough  to 
get  a  good  view  down  the  great  main  drive.  With  her 
trembling  hand  lifted  to  shield  her  eyes,  she  strains  her 
gaze  eagerly  down  it.  Oh,  if  she  could  but  catch  the 


BELINDA.  109 


most  distant  glimpse  of  him  !  Under  the  trees  spreads  in 
glory  the  dazzling  strong  spring  grass,  with  its  brightness 
toned  down  here  and  there  by  the  shadows  of  the  dark 
tree-trunks,  that  in  their  afternoon  quiet  lie  stilly  on  it. 
There  is  nothing  ! 

With  a  sort  of  sob  in  her  throat  that  shocks  herself, 
she  is  turning  away,  when,  at  the  very  other  end  of  the 
avenue,  she  becomes  aware  of  a  man's  figure  that  has 
suddenly  come  within  eye-range.  It  is  so  distant  that  it 
is  no  taller  than  a  pin  ;  but  surely  it  has  something  of  his 
walk  and  gait. 

Catching  at  this  new  hope,  she  advances  quickly  to 
meet  the  figure.  Yes  ;  it  certainly  has  a  look  of  him. 
"Well,  she  will  not  upbraid  him.  No  hurt  self-love  nor 
petty  sulks  shall  be  permitted  to  mar  the  heavenly  har- 
mony of  the  first  outpouring  of  their  hearts  into  each 
other.  She  will  not  even  ask  him  why  he  is  late.  No 
doubt  he  has  some  good  reason,  which  in  his  own  time 
he  will  tell  her.  But  alas  !  she  may  keep  her  high  re- 
solves for  another  occasion.  She  will  not  need  them 
now.  It  requires  no  very  near  approach  to  the  stranger 
to  reveal  that  he  is  not  Rivers  ;  that  he  is  not  even, 
when  you  come  close  to  him,  in  the  very  least  like  him. 

It  is  such  a  bitter  disappointment  that  she  turns  into  a 
side  alley  to  hide  her  tears  ;  but  quickly  drying  them 
again,  hastily  returns  to  the  meeting-place,  in  the  panic 
fear  that  he  may  have  appeared  there  from  some  unex- 
pected point  of  the  compass.  But  he  is  not  there  ;  and 
as  she  ascertains  this,  with  a  blank  heart-sinking,  the  city 
clocks  strike  the  half -hour.  It  is  half -past  five  !  For 
a  whole  hour  she  has  been  dancing  attendance  on  his 
pleasure  ;  waiting  here,  ridiculous  and  befooled. 

With  a  movement  of  strong  indignation  she  begins  to 
walk  swiftly  homeward  ;  but  before  she  has  gone  five 
yards,  her  purpose  slacks.  She  can  not  yet  bear  to  face 


110  BELINDA. 


the  fact  that  this  is  what  her  day's  splendid  and  ap- 
parently so  sure  promises  are  to  end  in — this  humiliated, 
balked,  back-coming !  She  will  give  him  five  minutes 
more.  Possibly,  not  very  improbably  even,  he  may  have 
mistaken  the  appointed  hour,  and  have  thought  that  it 
was  half -past  five  instead  of  half -past  four.  In  that  case 
he  would  be  scarcely  at  all  late,  even  now. 

A  little  recovered  by  this  new  flicker  of  hope,  she  sits 
down.  Yes  ;  she  will  give  him  five  minutes  more,  and 
during  all  these  five  she  will  not  look  round  once,  or  send 
her  eyes  in  search  of  him.  Perhaps  that  will  bring  her 
luck.  But  it  does  not.  The  five  minutes  are  gone,  and 
he  is  not  here.  She  gives  him  ten  more,  and  then  five 
again.  Twice  she  repeats  her  little  feverish  excursion  to 
the  head  of  the  main  avenue  ;  these  times  she  is  not  even 
deluded  by  the  will-of-the-wisp  of  a  possible  resemblance 
in  any  of  the  few  saunterers  that  occupy  it,  to  him  whom 
she,  with  a  now  so  evident  hopelessness,  seeks. 

It  is  only  the  clocks  striking  six  that  at  length  make 
her  really  and  desperately  turn  homeward.  Each  one  of 
their  tranquil  strokes  seems  to  her  the  beat  of  a  cruel 
hammer  on  her  heart.  But  putting  out  of  the  question 
the  bootlessness  of  any  further  delay,  self-respect,  at 
length  aroused,  forbids  her  any  more  moments  to  the 
humiliating  and  miserable  hour  and  a  half  she  has  already 
spent. 

"  If  I  had  had  any  proper  pride,  I  should  have  gone 
home  an  hour  ago,"  she  says  to  herself  in  bitterest  dejec- 
tion, as  she  passes  along.  She  holds  her  head,  usually 
carried  a  little  loftily,  well  down.  It  seems  to  her  as  if 
everybody  who  meets  her  must  read  in  her  face  her  deep 
discomfiture,  and  the  fool's  errand  on  which  she  has 
been.  She  quickens  her  pace  to  get  away  from  them  ; 
to  be  safe  out  of  the  streets  so  full  of  gaudy  light, 
where  at  any  time  she  may  meet  an  acquaintance — worse 


BELINDA.  HI 


still,  one  of  their  yesterday's  party  ;  worst  of  all,  Miss 
Watson. 

As  she  nears  the  Liittichau  Strasse  her  distress  light- 
ens a  little  ;  the  hope  of  finding  there  a  note,  a  message, 
some  solving  of  this  most  inhuman  riddle,  buoys  up  her 
steps  and  gives  life  again  to  her  looks.  It  can  not  be  but 
that  there  must  be  some  clearing  up  of  this  wretched  con- 
tretemps. It  will  have,  as  she  says  to  herself,  to  be  a 
very  bright  clearing  up  indeed,  to  indemnify  her  for  the 
sufferings  of  the  afternoon — that  very  afternoon  whose 
anticipated  joys  she  had  pitied  every  chance  passer-by 
that  she  met,  for  not  being  about  to  share. 

"  Well,"  cries  Sarah,  standing  in  the  open  salon  door, 
and  looking  expectantly  beyond  her  sister's  figure  for 
another,  "  where  is  he  ?  what  have  you  done  with  him  ? 
I  want  to  fall  on  his  neck  and  kiss  him.  I  have  long," 
laughing,  "  been  wishing  for  an  excuse  to  do  it,  and  now 
I  have  an  excellent  one." 

Belinda  had  not  meant  to  have  entered  the  salon. 
She  had  hoped  to  have  slunk  unperceived  to  her  room  ; 
for  has  not  Tommy,  in  answer  to  her  fevered  questions, 
philosophically  assured  her  that  there  has  been  neither 
note  nor  message  left  for  her  in  her  absence  ? 

"  Do  not,"  she  says  hoarsely  ;  "  do  not  laugh.  I  can 
not  bear  it.  He  was  not  there  ;  he  never  came." 

"  Never  came  !  "  echoes  Sarah  in  a  tone  of  bottomless 
wonder,  her  pretty  eyes  and  mouth  opening  with  a  stare 
and  a  gape.  "Then,"  gradually  recovering  the  power  of 
speech,  "then  where  have  you  been,  may  I  ask — what 
have  you  been  doing  all  this  time  ?  " 

"  I  have  been  waiting  for  him,"  answers  Belinda,  try- 
ing to  speak  steadily,  though  at  that  humiliating  confes- 
sion such  a  tide  of  crimson  rushes  over  her  poor  proud 
face  as  one  would  think  must  leave  all  the  rest  of  her 
body  bloodless. 


112  BELINDA. 


"  But  it  is  monstrous  I  "  cries  the  other  in  a  tone  of  the 
wildest  excitement ;  "  pa  n'a  pas  de  nom  ;  there  is  some 
mistake.  He  is  a  man,  he  is  a  gentleman  ;  of  course  he 
has  written — he  has  sent  ?  " 

Belinda  shakes  her  head. 

"No;  I  asked  Tommy." 

"  Tommy  I "  repeats  Sarah  in  a  tone  of  the  most  con- 
temptuous indignation.  "  Tommy,  indeed  !  That  boy  is 
ripening  for  the  tread-mill  or  the  gallows,  or  both,  as  fast 
as  he  can.  You  will  hardly  believe  that  after  what  I 
said  to  him — you  heard  me — he  showed  them  all  up  at 
once." 

Then,  ringing  the  bell  violently,  "  Tommy,"  she  says 
very  sharply,  "  how  dare  you  say  that  there  is  not  a  note 
for  Miss  Churchill  ?  Of  course  there  is  a  note.  Go  this 
moment  to  look  for  it,  and  do  not  come  back  without  it !  " 

Paying  no  attention  whatever  to  his  asseverations,  she 
waves  him  from  the  room  ;  and  then  follow  a  few  mo- 
ments of  painful  waiting.  At  the  end  of  them  Tommy 
returns  with,  sure  enough,  a  missive  of  some  kind  on  a 
salver. 

"  I  told  you  how  it  would  be  ! "  exclaims  Sarah,  tri- 
umphantly pouncing  upon  it  and  the  unlucky  child  at 
once.  "How  dare  you  tell  such  a  story,  you  naughty 
boy  ?  Do  you  know  where  liars  go  to  ?  " 

And  he  may  pour  into  her  unheeding  ear  his  faltering 
attempt  to  lay  the  blame  on  Gustel,  who  answers  the  bell 
when  he  is  out ;  she  does  not  hear  a  word  he  says.  In  a 
fury  of  impatient  anxiety,  she  is  stooping  over  Belinda's 
shoulder  :  Belinda,  whose  shaking  fingers  can  scarcely 
tear  the  envelope  asunder. 

A  thin  blue  paper  falls  out.  It  is  the  bill  from  a  Por- 
zellan  Handlung  for  a  couple  of  Meissen  figures  purchased 
there  a  week  ago.  In  an  uncontrollable  spasm  of  misery, 
she  throws  it  on  the  floor  and  bursts  into  tears. 


BELINDA.  113 


CHAPTER  XII. 

"  STILL  at  dinner,  are  they  ?  I  shall  not  detain  them 
a  moment ;  I  am  sure  they  will  admit  me;  they  always 
admit  me.  !N"o,  I  will  not  wait  in  the  salon  /  I  will  join 
them  in  the  dining-room." 

Such  are  the  sentences  uttered  by  Miss  Watson's 
voice,  and  plainly  audible  through  the  door  on  that  same 
evening,  as  addressed  to  Tommy,  who  is  opposing  his 
puny  infant  strength  to  the  forcible  breaking  in  upon  his 
mistresses  at  their  dessert  by  the  before-mentioned  lady. 
With  what  result  may  readily  be  guessed 

"Have  you  heard  about  young  Kivers?"  cries  she, 
thrusting  the  boy  aside  and  bursting  in  upon  them. 

They  are  sitting,  as  they  have  sat  upon  so  many  hap- 
pier evenings,  the  one  old  woman  and  the  two  young 
ones,  in  their  pretty  soigne  evening  dresses.  For  the  last 
three  quarters  of  an  hour  Belinda  has  been  struggling  to 
solve  the  problem  how  to  swallow.  It  is  dreadful  to  eat, 
but  it  is  still  more  dreadful  to  have  your  lack  of  appetite 
noticed  and  wondered  at.  Grapes  are  perhaps  less  diffi- 
cult than  most  other  things  for  an  unwilling  palate  to  deal 
with  ;  and  she  has  taken  a  few  Muscats,  and  is  holding  a 
small  bunch  between  her  hot  and  listless  fingers  at  the  time 
of  Miss  Watson's  bouncing  entrance.  Instantly  they  fall 
with  a  slight  patter  upon  her  plate. 

"  What  about  him  ?  "  asks  Sarah  eagerly,  jumping  up 
and  running  toward  the  intruder,  while  Mrs.  Churchill 
drops  the  little  red  Alpine  strawberry  she  is  in  the  act  of 
lifting  to  her  lips,  and  says  in  an  amazed  voice  : 

"  Dear  me,  Miss  Watson  \  how  you  startle  one  \  " 

"  You  have  not  heard,  then  ?  "  says  the  other  loudly, 
in  a  voice  of  relief.  "  I  am  the  first  to  tell  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,  yes  ;  of  course.    What  is  there  to  tell  ?  "    As 


114  BELINDA. 


she  speaks,  Sarah  places  herself  adroitly  between  their 
visitor  and  her  view  of  Belinda,  and  mentally  thanks  her 
gods  for  the  failing  light  and  the  unkindled  gas. 

"  I  was  at  the  station  this  evening,"  begins  the  other, 
only  too  happy  to  embark  upon  her  tale  ;  "  indeed,  I 
have  come  almost  straight  thence."  She  is  in  rather  dis- 
heveled morning  dress.  "  I  went  to  see  the  Rays  off. 
You  know  how  much  we  have  been  together  ;  they  would 
never  have  forgiven  me  if  I  had  not  !  " 

Despite  her  anxious  suspense,  Sarah  can  not  avoid  a 
sardonic  smile.  It  is  the  open  secret  of  the  whole  Eng- 
lish colony  that  the  Ray  family  has  been  compelled,  by 
Watson  assiduities,  regretfully  and  at  great  personal  in- 
convenience, to  curtail  their  stay  in  the  Saxon  capital. 

"  I  took  their  tickets  for  them,"  pursues  the  uncon- 
scious narrator — "  I  never  mind  trouble — indeed,  I  insist- 
ed upon  it.  To  tell  truth,  I  was  a  little  glad  of  the  op- 
portunity to  find  out  where  they  were  going  to  book  to, 
about  which  they  had  made  rather  a  foolish  mystery, 
when,  just  as  I  was  counting  my  change,  whom  should  I 
see  coming  up  to  the  ticket-office  but  young  Rivers  ! " 

"  Well  ?  "     Even  Sarah  is  a  little  breathless. 

" '  And  what  brings  you  here,  pray  ?  '  I  said.  *  Are 
you  come,  too,  to  see  the  Rays  off  ? '  He  did  not  hear  me. 
I  was  prepared  for  that  ;  you  know  you  explained  to  me 
that  he  was  a  little  deaf.  By -the -way,  that  deafness 
should  be  seen  to  at  once,  and  so  I  shall  tell  him,  if  I  ever 
meet  him  again." 

If  she  ever  meets  him  again  I  Belinda  is  leaning  for- 
ward in  an  attitude  of  the  acutest  strained  listening  ;  her 
heart  is  beating  against  the  edge  of  the  table  with  loud, 
hard  blows. 

"  He  evidently  could  not  have  heard  me,"  pursues  Miss 
Watson  fluently  ;  "nor  seen  me  either,  for  the  matter  of 
that,  as  he  turned  sharp  round  and  walked  off  in  the  other 


BELINDA.      <--  H5 


direction.  Of  course,  as  soon  as  the  Kays  could  spare 
me,  I  went  after  him  and  overtook  him." 

"  Of  course  !  "  murmurs  Sarah,  under  her  breath. 

"  I  put  my  hand  on  his  arm.  '  Come,  now,  where  are 
you  off  to  ? '  just  like  that.  He  shook  my  hand  off — you 
know  he  never  had  any  manners — that  is  why  I  think  he 
must  be  related  to  the  Stukeley  Rivers  ;  they  are  prover- 
bially rude,  as  a  family.  *  What  do  you  want  ? '  he  said, 
just  as  if  he  had  not  heard  my  question.  '  I  want  to  know 
where  you  are  off  to  ?  '  I  said.  '  Where  are  you  off  to  ? ' 
He  hesitated  for  a  moment,  and  then  seeing,  I  suppose, 
that  I  was  not  to  be  trifled  with,  that  I  was  determined 
to  have  an  answer  of  some  kind,  he  turned  his  head  quite 
away,  and  said  so  low  that  I  could  hardly  hear  him,  <I  am 
going  back  to  England  to  night.5  Then  he  was  away  like 
a  shot,  and  what  with  the  confusion  of  the  train  coming 
in,  and  seeing  that  the  Rays  had  all  their  parcels  right  in 
the  carriage — of  course  at  the  last  moment  one  was  miss- 
ing— I  never  caught  another  glimpse  of  him."  She  stops, 
out  of  breath,  her  narrative  ended  ;  nor,  for  a  moment, 
does  any  one  of  her  three  auditors  comment  upon  it. 

Belinda  has  sunk  back  in  her  chair,  and  round  her  the 
room  is  spinning.  Sarah,  Miss  Watson,  granny,  the  dogs, 
all  are  whirling.  Mrs.  Churchill  is  the  first  to  speak. 

"  I  suppose,"  she  says,  in  a  voice  still  somewhat  ruffled 
by  Miss  Watson's  inroad,  and  picking  up  the  sugar-sifter 
in  her  delicate  old  fingers,  "  that  he  was  tired  of  Dresden. 
There  is  nothing  very  wonderful  in  that.  Punch,  take 
your  hands  off  the  table  this  instant." 

"  But  it  is  so  sudden  !  "  cries  Miss  Watson,  in  a  loud 
aggrieved  tone,  as  if  Rivers's  departure  were  a  personal 
injury.  "  Why  did  not  he  tell  us  ?  He  never  told  me  ; 
did  he  ever  tell  you  he  was  going  ?  "  Nobody  takes  the 
trouble  to  answer.  "  I  am  sure  that  yesterday,  at  We- 
senstein,  nobody  would  have  said  that  he  had  such  an 


116  BELINDA. 


idea  in  his  head,  would  they  now  ?  "  turning  directly  to 
Belinda. 

By  a  great  exertion  of  the  powers  of  the  mind  over 
their  weaker  brothers  of  the  body,  Belinda  has  forced  the 
room  and  the  people  to  stand  steady  and  still  again.  By 
a  like  exertion  she  frames  a  sentence,  which,  though  short, 
is  not  conspicuously  tremulous. 

"  No  ;  I  think  not." 

"  Probably  he  was  telegraphed  for  home,"  says  Sarah, 
coming  hastily  to  her  sister's  rescue,  and  trying  to  divert 
from  her  the  brunt  of  Miss  Watson's  eyes  and  speech. 
"  Probably  he  had  bad  news  !  " 

"  I  should  not  wonder,"  answers  Miss  Watson,  looking 
down  on  the  floor  for  a  moment  in  inquisitive  reflection. 
"  I  should  not  at  all  wonder.  He  looked  like  a  man  who 
had  had  bad  news.  In  point  of  fact,  he  looked  shock- 
ingly ill.  I  never  saw  a  man  so  changed  in  so  short  a 
time.  I  am  so  annoyed  with  myself,"  in  a  tone  of  the 
sincerest  vexation,  "for  not  having  asked  him  point- 
blank  ! " 

"I  should  have  thought  that  you  might  have  spared 
yourself  that  reproach,"  says  Sarah  ;  adding,  as  she  casts 
an  oblique  glance  in  the  friendly  dusk  toward  Belinda,  to 
see  how  she  is  holding  up  :  "  Most  likely  one  of  his  rela- 
tions is  dead." 

"  I  hope  it  is  not  even  worse  than  that,"  answers  the 
other,  in  a  voice  of  mysterious  curiosity.  "  I  hope  that 
none  of  his  sisters  have  got  into  a  disagreeable  scrape. 
You  know  that,  in  the  world,  the  Rivers  women  have  the 
character  of  being  un  pen  leste" 

It  is  not  till  every  possible  conjecture  has  been  ex- 
hausted, till  the  few  facts  known  have  been  worn  bare 
and  shiny  by  turning  and  handling,  that  Miss  Watson  at 
length  withdraws.  She  would  not  have  gone  then,  had 
not  the  idea  suddenly  presented  itself  that,  if  she  make 


BELINDA.      ^.  117 


haste,  she  will  be  able  before  bedtime  to  force  herself  and 
her  news  upon  three  or  four  more  households. 

No  sooner  is  the  outer  door  safeiy  shut  upon  her, 
than — 

"  Tommy  is  incorrigible  ! "  says  Mrs.  Churchill,  in  a 
tone  of  irritation.  "The  number  of  times  that  I  have 
impressed  upon  him  not  to  admit  that  woman  on  any  pre- 
text whatever,  while  we  are  at  dinner  !  " 

"  Pooh,  granny  !  what  nonsense  you  talk  !  "  replies 
Sarah,  disrespectfully.  "  When  that  great  galleon  bears 
down  upon  him,  what  can  a  poor  little  skiff  like  Tommy 
do  ?  Of  course  she  will  come  to  breakfast  and  luncheon 
and  dinner,  and  we  may  think  ourselves  very  lucky  if  she 
does  not  insist  on  thrusting  herself  upon  us  in  our  baths." 
As  she  speaks,  she  puts  her  hand  under  her  sister's  heavy 
hanging,  limp  arm,  and  draws  her  away  toward  the  salon. 
"  If  you  will  be  so  slow,  granny,"  she  says,  with  a  parting 
laugh,  "  we  must  leave  you  to  carouse  alone.  I  believe 
you  enjoy  yourself  more  when  you  have  no  witnesses  of 
your  gormandizing." 

But  arrived  in  the  salon,  she  no  longer  laughs.  Be- 
linda has  thrown  herself  flaccidly  into  a  chair.  The  cur- 
tains are  undrawn,  and  through  them  her  eyes  stare  out 
upon  the  street — the  street  where,  through  the  deepening 
gloom,  the  lit  lamps,  but  now  such  insignificant  yellow 
specks,  are  beginning  to  gain  importance  and  use — the 
street  so  continually  worn  by  his  eager  footsteps,  where 
she  has  so  often  heard  them,  up  and  down,  up  and  down, 
waiting,  watching,  for  hours,  if  it  be  past  all  seemliness 
and  moderation  for  him  to  venture  a  visit,  on  the  bare 
chance  of  her  throwing  him  out  one  parting  smile.  All 
through  dinner  she  has  been  dreading  the  evening — 
dreading  its  suspense,  the  bell  that  will  ring  now  and 
again,  the  intervals  that  will  elapse,  and  then  the  blank 
silence,  nothing  resulting,  showing  that  it  was  not  he 


118  BELINDA. 


who  rang.  Well,  suspense  is  over  and  gone  now  ;  but  she 
would  be  glad  to  have  it  back  again,  seeing  that  it  has 
taken  hope  with  it. 

"  Well,"  she  says  after  a  pause,  looking  up  wearily  at 
her  sister,  who  stands  beside  her  with  her  fair  arms  folded 
and  her  white  brows  bent  in  an  attitude  of  serious  reflec- 
tion very  unnatural  to  her — "  well,  what  do  you  say  now  ? 
Who  was  right  now  ?  " 

"  I,"  replies  Sarah.  "  I  am  more  convinced  than  ever 
that  he  left  a  note  or  message  for  you,  and  that  it  has 
miscarried." 

Belinda's  shoulders  lift  themselves  slightly  in  an  un- 
believing shrug. 

"  Notes  do  not  miscarry." 

"  He  left  it  with  the  servants  to  send,"  pursues  Sarah 
decidedly,  "  and  they — you  know  what  German  servants 
are — put  it  into  the  post  or  into  the  fire,  to  save  them- 
selves trouble." 

Belinda  offers  no  contradiction,  but  neither  does  any 
ray  of  hope  brighten  her  dull  face  at  this  hypothesis. 

"  Are  you  quite  sure,"  asks  Sarah,  looking  penetrat- 
ingly in  her  elder's  face,  so  as  to  glean  her  answer  from 
it  rather  than  from  her  words — "  are  you  quite  sure  that 
you  did  not  snub  him  yesterday  at  Wesenstein?  I  know 
that  you  very  often  do  it  without  intending  it ;  that  you 
can  no  more  help  it  than  you  can  help  drawing  breath  ; 
but  are  you  sure  that  you  did  not  ?  " 

"  Snubbed  him  !  good  heavens,  no  !  " 

She  has  writhed  herself  half  over,  and  is  thrusting  her 
poor  face  into  the  cushioned  back  of  the  chair,  as  if  she 
wished  that  she  could  forever  bury  it  there  ;  while  the 
blood  seems  to  be  rushing  in  hot,  shamed  tinglings  all 
over  her  body,  as  her  sister's  words  call  up  before  her  in 
all  the  vividness  of  new  life  that  scene  in  the  wood,  in 
which  snubbing  bore  so  small  a  part. 


BELINDA.      w  119 


"  Then  it  is  perfectly  obvious,"  replies  Sarah  collect- 
edly, and  with  cool  common  sense,  "  as  I  told  that  hornet 
just  now,  that  he  has  had  bad  news  and  been  telegraphed 
for  home.  I  hope,"  with  an  accent  of  awakened  anxiety, 
"  that  it  is  not  the  iron  that  has  gone  wrong." 

"  I  hope  it  is  not  anything  about  his  father,"  says  Be- 
linda, startled  by  this  suggestion  out  of  her  own  hot  and 
miserable  retrospect ;  "  he  would  never  get  over  it." 

"  Pooh  !  "  says  Sarah  ;  "  sons  do  not  die  of  their  fa- 
thers' deaths  ;  and,  in  fact,  as  far  as  we  are  concerned,  it 
would  simplify  matters  a  good  deal ;  he  would  be  his  own 
father  then." 

For  a  few  moments  there  is  a  silence,  cut  into  only  by 
the  sound  of  Punch's  snores,  regular  and  long  drawn  out, 
through  the  door.  It  is  Belinda  who,  contrary  to  what 
one  would  have  expected,  breaks  it. 

"  You  were  always  telling  me,"  she  says  with  a  hard 
smile,  that  yet  looks  as  if  it  needed  only  one  touch  to 
make  it  dissolve  into  bitter  tears — "  you  were  always  tell- 
ing me  that  I  was  so  cold  to  him ;  you  were  always  ad- 
vising and  urging  me  to  be  less  cold  ;  perhaps,"  with  a 
sort  of  gasp,  "  perhaps  I  have  obeyed  you  too  well ;  per- 
haps— perhaps  he  thinks  so." 

"  Do  you  mean,"  cries  Sarah,  with  a  derisive  laugh, 
whose  offensive  quality  is,  however,  lessened  by  the 
soothing  gesture  of  a  kind  arm  thrown  at  the  same  moment 
round  her  afflicted  elder's  neck — "  do  you  mean  to  say  that 
you  suspect  him  of  having  taken  to  his  heels  because  you 
gave  him  two  civil  words  and  one  look  that  was  not  a 
scowl  ?  If  such  is  the  case,  he  is  a  valuable  admirer,  and 
the  more  express-trains  he  gets  into  the  better." 

But  Belinda  is  too  much  cast  down  to  make  any  re- 
joinder. 

"  You  will  pardon  my  saying  so,"  continues  Sarah  in 
a  counterfeit  apology  that  is  contradicted  by  the  lurking 


120  BELINDA. 


mirth  in  her  eye,  "  but  he  would  not  have  been  nearly  so 
tiresome  as  he  was  if  he  had  not  been  genuinely  in  love. 
If  a  man  is  only  playing  at  love,  he  can  be  civil  and 
amusing  to  other  people  ;  but,"  breaking  into  an  unavoid- 
able laugh,  "  was  poor  David  amusing  ?  he  had  his  one 
solitary  everlasting  idee  fixe.  My  dear  soul,"  passing  her 
light  hand  with  a  stroking  motion  down  Belinda's  heav- 
ing shoulder,  "  what  a  trial  he  was  to  granny  and  me  ! 
And — cheer  up  ! — what  a  trial  he  will  be  again  !  " 

This  is  all  the  consolation,  if  consolation  it  can  be 
called,  that  Belinda  has  to  take  to  bed  with  her. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

"  Lenore  f  uhr  am  Morgenroth 
Empor  aus  schweren  Traumen." 

THIS  is  all  the  consolation  with  which  she  wakes  next 
morning  and  exchanges  the  shadowy  muddle  of  her  dis- 
comfortable  visions  for  the  not  less  discomfortable  real- 
ity. She  had  slept — to  her  own  surprise — through  the 
earlier  part  of  the  night ;  but  in  May-time  day  and  night 
faint  into  each  other  ;  and  though  the  light  is  broad  and 
universal,  yet  the  hour  is  a  small  one  when  she  awakes, 
with  that  hopeless  decidedness,  that  irrevocable  bursting 
of  the  chains  of  slumber,  which  tells  its  unhappy  victim 
that  all  juggling  efforts  to  overtake  the  flown  blessing 
will  be  of  no  avail.  She  lies  on  her  uneasy  bed  for  as 
long  as  she  can  bear  it  ;  then,  since  the  hour  is  still  far 
too  early  to  ring  for  her  hot  water,  and  so  make  public 
an  abnormal  condition  of  mind  and  body,  she  rises,  and 
throwing  on  her  dressing-gown,  sits  down  by  the  open 
window  and  watches  the  strides  of  the  morning,  stepping 


BELINDA.  121 


clean  and  young  and  lucent,  across  the  old  and  dirty 
earth.  Even  the  ugly  Bohemian  Railway  Station  and 
the  stucco  houses  come  in  for  a  portion  of  his  kindness. 
How  much  more  the  little  hoary  garden  plat  and  the  dew- 
pearled  tulips  ! 

It  has  been  an  open  question  since  the  world  began, 
whether  the  loveliness  of  nature  assuages  or  aggravates 
the  misery  of  humanity,  in  its  more  miserable  moods. 
Belinda  would  subscribe  to  the  latter  opinion.  It  seems 
to  her  that  she  could  better  bear  the  look  of  the  day — 
that  it  would  not  make  her  so  angry; — if  slant  rain  were 
slashing  the  earth,  or  if  it  were  locked  in  a  prison  of 
frost,  or  wound  in  a  shroud  of  snow. 

The  splendor  of  the  transparent  air  ;  the  trees,  just 
lightly  wagging  their  heads  in  the  early  wind  ;  even  the 
short-tailed  starlings,  cheerfully  walking  about  while  the 
sun  touches  up  their  apparently  somber  feathers,  and 
brings  out  little  rainbow  colors  in  them  ;  each — each  has 
a  separate  stab  for  her.  There  were  starlings  at  Moritz- 
burg  ;  there  were  tulips  in  the  inn  garden  at  Lohmen  : 
can  she  set  her  eyes  upon  any  one  common  object  that  does 
not  bring  a  memory  with  it  ?  She  has  never  been  of  a 
very  bright  or  hopeful  temperament  with  regard  to  her 
own  future  ;  not  one  of  those  happy  young  ones  to  whom 
the  long  life  ahead  seems  swathed  in  a  golden  mist.  The 
deep  conviction  of  her  own  paucity  of  powers  of  attrac- 
tion, a  conviction  which  has  been  with  her  as  long  as  she 
can  remember  anything — as  long  as  the  far-away  days  of 
short  frocks  and  coming  down  to  dessert,  when  strangers 
used  to  pull  Sarah's  long  curls  and  laugh  at  her  smart  an- 
swers— a  conviction  that  for  a  bright  interval  has  been 
shaken,  now  settles  down  in  its  cold  and  humbling  cer- 
tainty again  in  her  heart. 

"  He  was  not  telegraphed  for,"  she  says  to  herself,  in 
a  tone  of  surpassing  bitterness  ;  "  he  had  no  ill  news  ;  but 
6 


122  BELINDA. 


he  was  right  to  go.  I  am  not  of  the  stuff  of  which  the 
women  that  men  love  are  made  !  Let  me  try  not  to  for- 
get it  again." 

The  clocks  one  after  another,  in  their  different  voices, 
have  just  struck  eight.  Cramped  with  long  sitting  in  one 
position,  which  she  has  forgotten  to  change,  she  rises,  and 
is  beginning  to  walk  up  and  down  the  little  room  when  a 
knock  comes,  a  quick,  loud,  rattling  knock,  which,  in  its 
lively  energy,  partakes  of  the  nature  of  the  person  who 
has  executed  it,  and  who  adds  to  it  an  urgent  calling  : 

"  Belinda  !  Belinda  !  are  you  awake  ?  " 

Awake  ! — is  she  awake  ?  She  smiles  grimly  to  her- 
self. 

"Yes,  I  am  awake,"  she  answers  in  an  unwilling 
voice,  that  she  in  vain  tries  to  make  sound  sleepy. 

"  Then  why  do  not  you  open  the  door  ?  "  cries  the 
voice  impatiently,  accompanying  the  question  by  a  long 
and  noisier  rattling  of  the  handle. 

But  Belinda  takes  no  step  toward  complying.  She 
wishes  for  no  one's  company,  not  even  Sarah's — perhaps 
Sarah's  least  of  all ;  for  is  not  she  the  one  person  from 
whom  she  has  been  unable  to  hide  her  humiliation  ? 

"  What  do  you  want  ?  "  she  asks  morosely. 

"  If  you  do  not  open  the  door  at  once,"  replies  Sarah, 
desisting  for  a  moment  from  her  rattling,  so  that  her 
voice  may  be  the  more  penetratingly  heard,  "  I  warn  you 
that  I  shall  open  your  note  and  read  it  myself  !  " 

Her  note  !  In  one  bound  Belinda  is  across  the  room, 
has  turned  the  key,  and  is  palely  facing  her  sister. 

"Who was  right?"  cries  Sarah,  strutting  in,  dishev- 
eled, dressing-gowned,  triumphant,  and  holding  in  her 
hand  a  letter,  which  the  other  silently  snatches.  "  I  was 
so  certain  that  he  must  have  written,  that  I  sent  Tommy 
round  to  his  lodgings  the  first  thing  this  morning  ;  and 
sure  enough  they  unearthed  this,  which  they  had  entire- 


BELINDA.  123 


ly  forgotten,  and  which  we  ought  to  have  received  yes- 
terday afternoon.  Come,  it  is  not  a  bill  this  time  !  " 

Belinda  has  opened  the  envelope,  and  is  staring  strain- 
ingly  at  the  paper. 

"  How  stupid  ! "  she  says,  passing  her  hand  across  her 
eyes.  "  Somehow  I  can  not  see  it." 

"  Is  it  possible  that  this  is  his  handwriting  ? "  cries 
Sarah,  coming  to  her  aid,  and  examining  with  surprise 
the  superscription.  "  What  a  shocking  hand  he  writes  !  " 

"  Yes  ;  it  is  his,"  says  Belinda,  again  passing  her  hand 
across  her  eyes  ;  "  but  it  is  very  shaky.  Something  has 
happened  to  alter  it  very  much.  I  think  you  must  read 
it,  please." 

"  There  does  not  appear  to  be  any  beginning,"  replies 
Sarah,  complying  with  some  alacrity  :  "  '  I  can  not  come 
to  meet  you  this  afternoon.  Oh,  forgive  me  ! '  (Then 
comes  a  prodigious  blot — mixed  tears  and  ink,  I  expect.) 
'  I  have  been  telegraphed  for  home '  (I  told  you  so  ;  then 
there  is  something  scratched  out ;  what  is  it  ? "  looking 
at  the  paper  aslant  and  half  shutting  one  eye).  "'A 
f-r-ightf  ul  cat ' — (what,  cat  ?  what  is  it  likely  to  be  ? — 
catastrophe — that  is  it,  of  course  ;  he  has  put  long  legs 
and  loops  to  all  the  short  letters,  but  I  can  quite  make  it 
out,  in  spite  of  that) — 'a  frightful  catastrophe' — (scored 
through,  you  know).  'I  do  not  know  what  I  am  saying. 
God  bless  you  ! '  (Then  more  blots.)— <D.  R.'  That  is 
all!" 

"  All ! "  cries  Belinda,  stretching  out  her  trembling 
hand  for  the  note.  "  Are  you  sure  that  there  is  nothing 
over  the  page  ?  " 

"Not  a  syllable!" 

There  is  a  silence.  Belinda's  eyes  are  riveted  on  the 
few  scrawled  words — so  few — on  which  all  her  future  is 
to  be  built.  Among  them  is  there  one  which  will  support 
the  weight  of  a  legitimate  hope  ? 


BELINDA. 


"  It  would  have  been  more  to  the  purpose,"  says  Sarah, 
in  a  tone  of  wounded  common  sense,  "  if  he  had  given  us 
a  hint  as  to  what  the  catastrophe  was,  instead  of  wasting 
so  much  ingenuity  in  making  all  those  unnatural  legs  and 
arms  to  his  *  a's '  and  *  c's '  and  *  s's.' " 

"  You  think  that  there  is  one  really  ?  that  something 
has  happened  ?  that  he  was  telegraphed  for  ?  "  asks  Be- 
linda, appealing  in  wistful  fever  to  her  cool,  shrewd 
junior. 

"  Of  course  he  was  ;  of  course  there  has  ! "  replies 
Sarah  decidedly.  "I  must  say,"  with  a  rather  satirical 
look,  "  that  you  have  a  high  opinion  of  your  admirer  ;  he 
ought  to  be  flattered  by  your  confidence.  No  !  reassure 
yourself,"  striking  the  untidy  blurred  page  with  her  fore- 
finger ;  "  any  one  with  pretensions  to  be  even  an  indif- 
ferent liar  would  have  been  ashamed  of  this." 

"  A  catastrophe  !  "  repeats  Belinda,  as  though  speak- 
ing to  herself,  and  still  looking  at  the  note  ;  "  what  sort 
of  a  catastrophe  ?  I  think — I  fear — that  it  must  in  some 
way  concern  his  father." 

"Well,  anyhow,  the  poor  boy's  character  is  cleared 
up,"  says  Sarah  gayly,  sweeping  in  her  long  peignoir  to 
the  window,  and  standing  blithely  looking  out  at  the 
tulips  and  the  starlings — as  brightly  pretty  as  the  former, 
as  robustly  cheerful  as  the  latter.  "After  all,  he  has 
not  been  driven  away  by  your  unladylike  warmth,  as  you 
had  quite  made  up  your  mind  last  night ;  and  as  to  his 
father,  if  it  is  he,  our  grief  must  be  chastened  by  the 
thought  that  we  have  never  set  eyes  upon  him.  Well,  I 
suppose  I  must  not  spend  the  day  in  my  dressing-gown," 
walking  to  the  door. 

Neither  must  Belinda ;  and  yet  for  long  after  her 
sister  has  left  her,  she  sits,  still  poring  over  the  meager 
sheet  that  is  her  first  love-letter.  She  laughs  derisively. 
Will  it  be  her  last,  too  ?  At  that  thought  she  sets  her- 


BELINDA.  125 


self  to  weary  calculations.  It  is,  without  stopping — he 
will,  of  course,  stop  nowhere  between  Dresden  and  Lon- 
don— a  thirty-six  hours'  journey.  Probably  five  or  six 
hours  more  will  be  occupied  in  getting  on  to  Yorkshire. 
It  is  a  four  days'  post  from  England  to  Dresden.  Even 
if  he  wrote  to  her  immediately  on  arriving — a  most  un- 
likely hypothesis — it  can  not  be  much  less  than  a  week 
before  she  hears.  There  must  be  five  or  six  absolutely 
void  black  days,  that  yet  will  have  the  same  complement 
of  hours  in  them  as  the  day  at  Moritzburg  or  the  day  at 
Wesenstein.  She  lays  her  hot  forehead  on  the  cool 
wooden  chair-back.  Oh,  if  they  could  but  be  slept 
through  ! 

But  at  this  moment  the  entrance  of  her  maid,  with 
the  usual  paraphernalia  of  her  toilet,  sufficiently  reminds 
her  that  they  can  not.  They  can  not  be  slept  through  ! 
They  must  be  dressed  through,  talked  through,  eaten 
through,  made  expeditions  through,  joked  through. 
Worst  of  all,  his  departure,  its  cause,  his  probable  or 
improbable  return,  he  himself,  must  be  continually  dis- 
cussed and  worn  threadbare  in  her  hearing. 

This,  indeed,  is  an  evil  from  which  she  suffers  for 
only  two  days.  After  that,  he  being  gone,  and  never 
having  sought  to  make  himself  specially  acceptable  to 
any  member  of  the  little  society  save  one,  he  slips  from 
their  talk  and  their  thoughts. 

She  is  deeply  thankful  when  their  chatter  about  him 
ceases,  and  yet  angry  with  them  for  so  soon  forgetting 
him.  And  meanwhile  the  days  in  summer  procession 
pace  stately  by,  full  of  sap  and  growth  and  laughter. 
The  date  of  the  Churchill  departure  is  now  fixed  for  the 
5th  of  June ;  and  as  that  period  approaches,  a  freezing 
panic  fear  begins  to  clutch  Belinda  more  and  more  tightly 
in  its  hold — the  fear  that  her  own  going  may  antedate 
the  arrival  of  his  letter  ;  that  he  may  write  to  her  here, 


126  BELINDA. 


and  the  letter  not  be  forwarded.  The  many  tales  she 
has  heard  of  lives  dismally  wrecked  upon  some  such  small 
accident  throng  her  memory. 

The  house  is  full  of  signs  of  an  approaching  deme- 
nagement ;  full  of  packing,  disarranging,  bustling.  It  is 
mostly  full  also  of  German  officers,  who,  being  aware  that 
their  time  for  enjoying  the  society  and  the  wit  of  their 
love-worthy  Sarah  is  all  too  quickly  passing,  are  resolved 
to  have  nothing  to  reproach  themselves  with  in  the  way 
of  not  having  availed  themselves  of  it  while  they"  were 
able.  Some  of  them  are  not  unwilling  to  extend  their 
endearments  to  the  elder  sister,  seeing  her  no  longer 
monopolized  by  her  surly  fellow-countryman  ;  but  she 
has  received  their  compliments  so  blankly,  that,  ashamed 
of  their  brief  infidelity,  they  have  clanked  hastily  back 
to  their  first  love,  who  sees  them  go  and  return  with  the 
same  joyous  indifference. 

Belinda  has  been  innocent  of  the  least  intention  to 
snub  them,  but  how  can  one  receive  pretty  speeches — any 
speeches  intelligently,  when  one  is  continually  doing  a 
sum  in  one's  head — 36  and  5,  41  ;  1  day  from  4  days  ; 
1  day  from  3  days,  etc.  ? 

The  packing  is  not  of  so  wholly  occupying  a  nature 
as  to  exclude  incidental  amusements.  It  does  not  even 
forbid  a  farewell  excursion  to  Tharandt ;  an  excursion 
planned  by  Sarah  and  her  rout  of  Uhlans  ;  with  some 
necessary  padding  of  a  lenient  chaperon,  and  compliant 
girls. 

Belinda  has  believed  herself  equal  to  sharing  it.  Tha- 
randt is  rendered  agonizing  by  no  associations.  She  has 
never  visited  Tharandt  in  his  company,  but,  at  the  last 
moment,  a  trifle  robs  her  of  her  fortitude — the  sight  of 
her  cobwebby  Wesenstein  gown,  extended  with  uncon- 
scious tactless  cruelty  by  her  maid  on  the  bed.  She 
throws  herself  down,  ungovernably  sobbing,  beside  it. 


BELINDA.  127 


It  seems  like  the  husk  of  her  lost  happiness.  By-and-by 
they  are  all  gone,  and  the  house  is  left  to  her  and  to  si- 
lence. It  is  deserted  even  by  the  dogs,  who  have  been 
taken  out  driving  by  Mrs.  Churchill ;  Slutty,  supinely  in- 
different to  view  and  air,  curled  at  the  carriage-bottom, 
and  Punch  standing  up  on  his  hind  legs,  with  his  fore- 
paws  on  the  carriage-side,  like  an  unsteady  heraldic  lion. 

Belinda  laughs  a  little  at  the  thought  of  him  as  she 
returns  to  the  salon,  which  is  beginning  to  wear  a  deso- 
late look,  reduced  to  its  own  lodging-house  furniture  and 
shorn  of  the  graces  bestowed  upon  it  by  the  Churchills' 
Indian  rugs  and  Turkish  chair-backs.  Its  new  ugliness, 
meeting  her  eye,  seems  to  add  to  the  vexation  of  her 
spirit.  The  sunlight  on  the  street  vexes  her  too.  She 
wanders  for  a  while  aimlessly  about  the  room,  and  then 
drops  as  aimlessly  into  a  chair.  To  an  observer  it  would 
seem  that  she  is  quite  without  occupation.  But  it  is 
not  so.  She  is  still  at  work  upon  that  sum.  She  has  just 
finished  it,  or  rather  she  has  just  begun  it  afresh,  when 
an  unexpected  interruption  drives  it  not  away — nothing, 
alas !  could  do  that — but  into  the  background  of  her 
mind. 

The  summer  afternoon  is  at  its  drowsiest,  even  the 
flies  buzz  inertly  along  the  pane,  when  the  room-door 
opens  and  Professor  Forth  looks  in. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  says  formally,  "  but  I  think 
your  page  must  have  been  misinformed  ;  he  tells  me  that 
Sarah  is  not  at  home." 

At  the  sound  of  his  voice,  separated  by  how  many 
seas  and  continents  from  her  thoughts,  Belinda  starts  to 
her  feet ;  then,  conjuring  suddenly  up  a  civil  smile,  says 
gently  : 

"  But  I  am  afraid  he  is  not  misinformed.  I  am  afraid 
she  is  out.  Did  you  expect  to  find  her  ?  " 

He  has  entered  the  room  now  in  his  hard  and  grace- 


128  BELINDA. 


less  academic  black,  which  somehow  looks  out  of  char- 
acter with  the  light-colored  room  and  the  blazing  day. 

"  Naturally  I  expected  to  find  her,"  he  replies  sharply, 
"  since  it  is  by  her  own  appointment  that  I  am  here  ; 
after  evading  on  various  trivial  pretexts  every  meeting 
proposed  by  me  for  the  past  week,  she  herself  gave  me  a 
distinct  and  definitive  rendezvous  for  this  hour  and  day. 
jTam  punctual  to  the  moment  !  "  glancing  angrily  at  the 
Dresden  clock. 

"  I  am  sadly  afraid  that  she  has  forgotten  all  'about 
it,"  replies  Belinda,  bursting  into  a  helpless  laugh  ;  but 
indeed  there  is  no  greater  fallacy  than  that  one  may  not 
laugh  heartily,  violently,  and  not  hysterically,  when  one's 
heart  is  breaking  ;  "  she  has  gone  out  upon  an  expedi- 
tion." 

"She  is  always  going  out  upon  expeditions,"  retorts 
he  snappishly. 

Belinda  sighs  ;  her  mirth  vanished  as  quickly  as  it 
came.  She  has  no  energy  to  take  up  the  cudgels  for 
Sarah,  of  whose  conduct  no  one  can  think  worse  than 
she  does,  and  of  whose  meditated  villainy  she  is  guiltily 
aware. 

"  She  is  young,"  she  says  lamely. 

"  I  can  not  see  that  that  is  any  valid  apology  for  a 
systematic  neglect  of  all  the  more  serious  duties  of  life," 
he  replies  fretfully. 

He  has  walked  to  the  window,  where  he  now  stands 
drowned  in  a  bath  of  golden  radiance.  Never  has  he 
looked  less  lovable  ;  ill-humor  rendering  yet  more  pinched 
and  captious  his  pinched  pedant  face  ;  and  never  has 
Belinda  felt  so  charitably  toward  him.  "  He  is  not  ami- 
able ;  Heaven  knows  that  he  is  not  attractive,"  she  says 
to  herself  ;  "  so  much  the  worse  for  him.  But  he  is  un- 
happy ;  what  better  claim  could  he  have  upon  my  sympa- 
thy?" 


BELINDA.  129 


"Do  you  want  her  for  anything  special?"  she  asks 
not  unkindly,  going  up  and  standing  beside  him  in  the 
rain  of  sunbeams  in  her  large  young  beauty  ;  "  anything 
in  which  I  can  help  you  ?  " 

It  is  obvious  that  the  idea  had  never  occurred  to  him 
that  in  her  he  should  find  either  the  ability  or  the  willing- 
ness to  aid  him. 

"  You  are  very  good,"  he  answers  stiffly  ;  "  the  fact 
is,  I  wanted  to  throw  together  a  few  thoughts  upon  the 
Idea  of  Color  among  the  Athenians,"  glancing  at  a  bun- 
dle of  notes  and  papers  in  his  hands,  "  and  I  entirely  de- 
pended upon  Sarah  to  be  my  secretary.  She  is  perfectly 
aware,"  with  a  revived  and  extreme  exasperation  of  tone, 
"  of  the  affection  in  my  eyes  which  precludes  the  possi- 
bility of  my  writing  more  than  a  certain  number  of  hours 
a  day,  and  which  keeps  me  here  in  the  middle  of  term, 
unavoidably  absent  from  my  post  and  Oxbridge." 

"  She  is  very  provoking  !  "  assents  Belinda  soothingly. 
"  But  as  far  as  the  writing  goes,  I  write  a  much  better 
hand  than  Sarah.  She  never  would  learn,  when  we  were 
children.  She  was  always  playing  monkey-tricks  upon 
the  master  all  through  the  lesson.  Can  not  I  be  your 
secretary?"  As  she  speaks,  she  lifts  to  his  her  large 
serious  eyes,  full  of  a  compassion  that  is  none  the  less 
sincere  for  being  slightly  tinged  with  contempt. 

"You  are  very  good  !  "  he  repeats  ceremoniously.  "  I 
am  aware  that  I  have  no  right  to  trespass  upon  your 
valuable  time." 

"There  is  no  one  else  to  trespass  upon  it,"  she  an- 
swers, stifling  a  sigh.  "On  the  contrary,  I  am  obliged 
to  any  one  who  will  help  me  to  get  through  it."  As  she 
speaks  she  walks  toward  the  writing-table,  and  quickly 
and  methodically  arranging  the  writing  materials,  seats 
herself,  and  in  a  few  moments  is  penning  her  first  sen- 
tence from  his  dictation. 


130  BELINDA. 


She  has  undertaken  the  office  out  of  pure  good-nature, 
and  at  first  fulfills  it  quite  mechanically.  Gradually, 
however,  as  the  meaning  of  the  words  she  is  writing 
penetrates  through  her  ears  into  her  understanding,  a 
slight  interest  in  the  subject  in  hand  awakens  in  her. 
She  asks  a  question  or  two.  By-and-by  there  comes  a 
Greek  word. 

"May  it  be  written  in  English  letters?"  she  asks, 
glancing  up.  "No?  Well,  then  I  am  afraid  I  must 
leave  it  for  you  to  insert." 

"You  do  not  know  the  Greek  character?"  he  asks, 
with  a  slight  touch  of  regret  in  his  tone. 

She  shakes  her  head. 

"  I  am  afraid  I  must  ask  you,"  smiling  a  little,  "  not  to 
question  me  too  closely  as  to  what  I  know." 

"  I  offered  to  teach  it  to  Sarah,"  he  says  aggrievedly. 

"And  she  refused,  of  course." 

"  It  is  not  the  want  of  knowledge,"  he  says,  beginning 
to  pace  gloomily  up  and  down  the  room,  "  that  is  the 
irremediable  evil.  It  is  the  total  lack  of  all  desire  for 
knowledge — that  is  what  I  deplore  in  Sarah." 

Belinda  has  paused  in  her  writing,  her  elbow  leant  on 
the  table,  and  idly  brushing  with  the  feather  of  the  pen 
the  red  curve  of  her  lips. 

"  I  have  never  known  an  instance,"  continues  he,  still 
pursuing  his  irritated  walk,  "of  a  young  person  whose 
character  had  undergone  so  radical  a  change  in  so  com- 
paratively short  a  period  of  time." 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  "  cries  Belinda,  surprised.  "  She 
has  always  been  exactly  the  same  as  long  as  I  can  remem- 
ber her ! " 

"When  first  I  made  her  acquaintance,"  he  goes  on, 
not  heeding  the  interruption,  "I  of  course  became  at 
once  aware  of  her  ignorance — that  is  patent ;  but  she  ap- 
peared to  me  to  be  not  lacking  in  intellectual  force,  nor  in 


BELINDA.  131 


a  rather  remarkable  desire  for  self -improvement.  On  the 
very  first  evening  I  met  her,  she  deplored  to  me  the 
deficiency  of  her  education,  and  asked  me  in  so  many 
words  to  aid  her  in  the  formation  of  her  mind." 

Belinda  drops  the  pen.  It  is  not  a  nearly  large 
enough  shield  to  hide  the  convulsive  mirth  that  this 
revelation  of  her  sister's  hideous  hypocrisy  has  called 
forth. 

"I  still  cherish  the  hope,"  continues  he,  fortunately 
unaware  of  the  character  of  his  auditor's  emotion,  "that 
this  may  be  only  a  phase  ;  that  on  her  return  to  her  home 
and  her  more  regular  occupations,  freer  from  these  sense- 
less distractions,"  with  an  exaggerated  emphasis,  "her 
mind  may  resume  that  soberer  bias  which,  from  my  first 
impression  of  her,  I  can  not  but  believe  to  be  its  natural 
one." 

Belinda,  still  unable  to  speak,  contents  herself  with  a 
gentle  head-shake,  as  commentary  and  gloss  upon  which 
there  comes,  at  the  same  moment,  the  sound  of  a  scamper- 
ing step  on  the  stone  stairs,  of  a  loudly  singing  voice, 
waking  to  life  again  the  dead  dumb  house.  In  a  moment 
the  door  flies  open,  and  the  person  whose  mind  is  expected 
so  soon  to  resume  its  soberer  bias  stands  before  them,  her 
hat  a  good  deal  on  one  side,  from  the  weight  of  the  flow- 
ering may-bough  stuck  rakishly  in  it — the  may-bough 
whose  strong  and  almost  pungent  perfume  comes  rushing 
into  the  room  with  her. 

"  Are  not  you  delighted  to  welcome  me  back  so  unex- 
pectedly early  ?  "  cries  she  joyously.  "  But  it  was  so  hot, 
and  my  soldiers  were  all  so  cross  and  low  at  the  prospect 
of  losing  me,  and  Yon  Breidenbach  had  a  toothache,  and 
so — Mr.  Forth  !  "  suddenly  catching  sight  of  him.  "  Ah  !  " 
with  an  abrupt  change  and  refrigeration  of  tone,  "  of 
course  you  came  about  that  essay  of  yours  ;  and,  equally 
of  course,  I  forgot  all  about  it.  Well,  I  dare  say  there  is 


132  BELINDA. 


no  great  hurry  !  Happily,  the  Greeks  will  keep  ;  they  will 
not  run  away." 

There  is  an  ominous  silence.     Then — 

"  It  is  unfortunate,"  begins  the  Professor,  in  a  voice 
trembling  with  indignation,  while  the  puckers  of  anger 
that  Belinda's  mild  hand  has  been  smoothing  away,  again 
form  their  network  over  his  face,  "that  considering  the 
position  in  which  we  stand  relatively  to  each  other,  our 
views  of  life  and  its  significance  should  be  so  diametri- 
cally—" 

Belinda  leaves  the  room. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

"  How  can  I  ever  thank  you  enough  for  having  paved 
the  way  for  me  ?  "  says  Sarah  next  morning,  as  the  two 
sisters  sit  awaiting  breakfast.  "  I  awoke  to-day  in  such 
a  humble,  grateful  frame  of  mind.  I  said  to  myself, 
'  Thanks  to  God  and  my  good  sister,  I  am  out  of  my  dif- 
ficulty!'" 

"  Did  you  happen  to  mention  that  it  was  your  seven- 
teenth ?  "  asks  Belinda  grimly. 

"I  said  to  myself,"  continues  Sarah,  feigning  deaf- 
ness, "  I  will  put  on  a  clean  calico  gown,  and  ask  granny 
to  let  us  have  some  champagne  for  dinner,  to  celebrate 
my  little  innocent  festival.  Really,  joking  apart,  it  was 
almost  worth  while  to  be  engaged  to  him,  for  the  plea- 
sure of  having  it  broken  off.  Can  not  you  understand 
that?" 

"  I  have  already  explained  to  you  several  times  that  I 
would  rather  have  been  burned  alive  than  be  engaged  to 
him  at  all,"  replies  Belinda  trenchantly. 

But  the  snub,  like  many  kindred  predecessors,  passes 


BELINDA.  133 


airily  over  Sarah's  yellow  head,  and  leaves  no  mark  upon 
her  satisfied  serenity. 

"  Punch/'  she  says,  taking  the  two  dogs'  fore-paws  in 
her  hands,  and  looking  gravely  in  their  black  faces, 
"  Punch,  I  am  free  !  Slutty,  I  am  free  !  Go  and  tell 
the  cats  and  the  parrot ! " 

Belinda  has  sunk  back  into  herself.  She  is  wondering 
feverishly  what  is  making  the  letters  so  late. 

"  I  have  not  even  made  an  enemy  of  him,"  pursues 
Sarah,  loosing  the  dogs'  paws,  and  sinking  back  with  a 
sigh  of  complacency  in  her  chair.  "  I  believe  that  in  his 
heart  he  was  quite  as  glad  to  be  out  of  it  as  I.  He  was 
the  first  of  them,"  with  a  slight  regretful  pout,  "  who  was 
glad  to  be  off  !  " 

"  I  think  he  was  very  glad  !  "  says  Belinda  spite- 
fully. 

"  Say  one  word  more,  and  I  will  have  him  back  again," 
cries  Sarah,  roused  by  this  challenge. 

But  Belinda  makes  no  rejoinder.  To  her,  Sarah  and 
her  light  loves  have  become  distant  and  insignificant 
things.  Her  strained  ears  have  caught,  or  she  thinks  so, 
the  sound  of  a  footstep.  Of  course  it  is  only  Tommy 
bringing  in  the  breakfast  ;  but  he  may  be  bringing  her 
death-warrant  or  her  evangel,  too.  It  is  the  first  day  on 
which,  according  to  her  calculation  of  distances,  it  would 
be  possible  for  her  to  receive  a  letter  from  Rivers. 

"  If  you  had  heard,"  continues  Sarah,  smiling  rosily 
to  herself,  "  the  masterly  way  in  which  I  indicated  to  him 
that  it  was  only  my  consciousness  of  inadequacy  to  fill 
that  high  post,  which  made  me  regretfully  retire  from  it, 
I  think  that  even  you  would  have  admired  me." 

"  Should  I  ?  "  quite  inattentively. 

"He  swallowed  it  all,"  continues  Sarah,  growing 
grave.  "  Good  heavens  !  "  throwing  up  her  eyes,  "  what 
will  not  they  swallow  ?  " 


134:  BELINDA. 


That  sound  has  died  away  again.  It  could  not  have 
been  even  Tommy. 

"  I  cried  a  little,"  resumes  Sarah,  with  that  glow  of 
modest  retrospective  satisfaction  still  diffused  all  over 
her,  extending  even  to  her  pink  cambric  gown.  "  Do  not 
ask  me  how  I  did  it  ;  I  could  not  even  engage  to  do  it 
again  were  the  same  situation  to  return  ;  these  strokes  of 
genius  do  not  repeat  themselves." 

She  stops,  her  attention  diverted  into  a  fresh  channel, 
for  at  this  moment  Gustel  throws  open  the  door,  and 
Tommy  enters,  his  childish  arms  extended  to  their  widest 
stretch  to  embrace  the  breakfast  tray,  upon  which,  beside 
coffee-pot  and  rolls,  lies  a  heap  of  letters  and  papers. 
Belinda  does  not  stir  now  that  the  moment  so  breathlessly 
longed  for  has  come  ;  she  would  fain  put  it  off  again, 
shove  it  away  a  little  further. 

A  paralysis  of  fear  nails  her  to  her  chair.  She  feels 
an  impulse  of  anger  against  Sarah  for  doing  what  she 
herself  is  incapable  of  ;  for  her  quick  movement  toward 
the  tray,  her  hasty  turning  over  of  the  family's  corre- 
spondence. There  is  a  second's  pause — a  pause  during 
which  hope  still  lives  ;  then  in  a  moment  it  is  dead. 
Sarah's  voice  would  tell  her  that,  even  if  her  words  did 
not. 

"I  am  afraid  there  is  nothing  very  interesting  for 
you,"  she  says  reluctantly,  tossing  her  three  or  four  let- 
ters without  looking  at  her.  Belinda's  heart  dies  ;  then 
suddenly  there  flares  up  a  tiny  flame  of  hope  in  it  again. 
Possibly  Sarah  may  not  recognize  his  handwriting. 
Probably  it  is  so  disguised  and  disfigured  by  trouble  and 
emotion  as  to  be  unrecognizable.  Was  not  this  the  case 
with  her  note  ?  She  snatches  at  the  letters  and  looks  diz- 
zily from  one  to  the  other  of  the  superscriptions.  Alas 
no  !  they  are  all  in  the  handwriting  of  familiar  and  habit- 
ual correspondents.  She  has  told  herself  all  night  that  her 


BELINDA.  135 


expectations  were  not  highly  raised  for  to-day  ;  that  to- 
day is  the  first  day  on  which  it  would  be  possible  to  hear  ; 
that,  being  only  possible,  it  is  not  also  probable  ;  that  her 
chances  are  better  for  to-morrow  or  the  day  after.  And 
yet  now  that  the  disappointment  has  come,  it  seems  to 
her  ruinous  and  final.  Her  first  movement  is  to  dash  the 
letters  down  on  her  lap  ;  then,  with  that  instinct  of  self- 
respect  which  parts  us  from  the  savage  and  the  beast,  re- 
membering that  Tommy's  round  gaze  is  upon  her,  she 
picks  up  one,  and  shakily  unfolding  it,  lets  her  misery- 
shaded  eyes  fall  on  the  page.  Only  for  a  moment,  how- 
ever ;  a  fresh  thought  makes  her  drop  it  and  fly  to  the 
papers. 

In  a  second  she  has  torn  open  one  of  the  English  jour- 
nals, the  Standard ;  and  seizing  the  advertisement  sheet, 
greedily  turns  to  the  column  of  births,  deaths,  and  mar- 
riages. She  runs  her  eye  down  the  names  ;  she  will  not 
allow  this  horrible  swimming  to  blind  her  ;  she  will  read 
for  herself. 

"Abbots,  Ackers,  Anson,  Baker,  Callcott,  Frith, 
Forly,  Harper,  Key — when  do  the  R's  come?  what  a 
long,  long  list !  Ah  !  here  they  are  !  Raby,  Rashleigh, 
Retford — what  a  number  of  R's  are  dead  !  Yes,  here  it 
is  !  Rivers  !  "  The  swimming  is  gone.  She  can  see  it 
clearly  ;  there  is  no  mistake.  "  On  the  24th  inst.,  at  Den- 
ver Hall,  Yorkshire,  John  Appleby  Rivers,  M.  P.,  aged 
54." 

At  the  same  moment  Tommy,  his  functions  ended, 
shuts  the  door  behind  him.  For  a  moment  or  two  Be- 
linda stares  dully  at  the  announcement,  then  silently 
holds  it  out  to  her  sister.  But  Sarah  does  not  see  it ;  her 
head  is  buried  between  the  other  sheets  of  the  paper, 
which  she  has  been  too  impatient  even  to  cut. 

"  I  knew  it,"  she  says,  speaking  suddenly  in  a  voice 
that  is  a  little  tremulous,  a  little  awed,  and  yet  trium- 


136  BELINDA. 


phant.  "  I  knew  it  was  his  father  ;  he  is  dead  ;  he  has 
committed  suicide.  Poor  David !  no  wonder  he  looked 
odd.  There  is  a  paragraph  about  it." 

"  Committed  suicide  !  "  repeats  Belinda  with  a  gasp, 
turning  as  white  as  the  table-cloth,  and  her  great  gray  eyes 
dilating,  while  the  image  of  her  poor  boy-lover  and  his 
whole-hearted  devotion  to,  his  innocent  enthusiasm  about 
his  father,  at  which  she  had  sometimes  smiled,  superior 
yet  envious,  darts  painfully  back  upon  her  memory. 

Sarah  has  snatched  a  table-knife  and  is  rapidly  and 
jaggedly  cutting  the  paper.  "4We  regret  to  announce 
the  death,  under  peculiarly  painful  circumstances,  of  Mr. 
John  Appleby  Rivers,  of  Denver  Hall,  Yorkshire,  who 
for  the  last  ten  years  has  represented  the  Borough  of 
Denver  in  the  Conservative  interest  in  Parliament.  The 
deceased  gentleman  had  retired  to  rest  on  the  night  of 
the  25th  in  his  usual  health,  but  on  the  following  morn- 
ing his  valet,  on  going  to  call  him  at  the  accustomed 
hour,  found  his  door  locked,  and  could  obtain  no  answer 
to  his  repeated  knocks.  The  family  becoming  alarmed, 
an  entrance  was  effected  through  the  window,  when  the 
unfortunate  gentleman  was  found  extended  lifeless  on  the 
floor,  with  his  throat  cut  from  ear  to  ear.  Medical  as- 
sistance was  at  once  procured,  but  in  vain,  as  life  had 
evidently  been  extinct  for  some  hours.9 "  Sarah  pauses 
with  a  shudder  of  disgust,  even  her  blooming  cheek  a 
little  paled.  "  Why  will  people  cut  their  throats,"  she 
says  complainingly,  "  when  there  are  so  many  clean  ways 
of  dying?" 

"Perhaps  he  did  not  do  it  himself,"  cries  Belinda, 
catching  breathlessly  at  this  hope.  "  Who  knows  ?  Per- 
haps he  was  murdered  !  " 

"  Wait  a  bit ! "  replies  Sarah,  putting  up  her  hand  in 
prohibition.  "  WTiere  was  I !  Let  me  go  on  :  '  Been 
extinct  for  several  hours  ;  the  razor  with  which  the  deed 


BELINDA.  137 


had  been  accomplished  lay  on  the  floor  beside  the 
corpse  ! ' '  Again  she  shudders.  "  Grisly  word  !  why 
will  they  use  it  ?  Why  do  all  newspaper- writers  love 
it ?  'It  is  surmised  that  distress  of  mind,  arising  from  pe- 
cuniary embarrassment,  was  the  immediate  cause  of  the 
rash  act.' "  She  stops  for  a  few  moments,  and  there  is 
silence ;  Belinda  has  put  her  hands  over  her  eyes,  before 
which  the  ghastly  sight  is  conjured  up  in  its  red  hor- 
ror. 

This,  then,  is  what  has  robbed  her  of  him !  This  is 
the  spectacle  for  which  he  has  exchanged  the  spring- 
dressed,  sun-warmed  Grosse  Garten.  This  is  the  errand, 
falsely  and  cruelly  supposed  by  her  to  be  a  feigned  one, 
which  has  torn  him  away.  She  shivers,  and  the  shiver  is 
followed  by  a  warm  rush  of  passionate  pity. 

"  What  will  he  do  ?  How  will  he  bear  it  ?  Will  he 
ever  get  over  it  ? "  We  ask  ourselves  and  each  other 
this  senseless  question,  as  often  as  an  affliction  a  little 
severer  than  common  alights  upon  one  that  is  known  to 
us  ;  although  experience,  a  thousand  times  repeated,  has 
taught  us  its  folly.  But  below  the  horror  and  the  com- 
passion, though  bofch  are  genuine,  there  lies  in  Belinda's 
mind  a  thick,  deep  stratum  of  inexpressible  relief  and 
joy.  It  is  explained  then  !  Suspense  is  ended  ;  at  least 
for  the  moment  it  seems  so.  There  may  be  a  cessation 
of  that  weary  sum-doing.  She  may  think  again  of  the 
wood  at  Wesentein  without  writhing.  Her  past  is  re- 
stored to  her.  Surely  she  can  live  upon  it  until  he  comes 
back  to  give  her  a  present  and  a  future. 

"  Pecuniary  embarrassments  !  "  says  Sarah  thought- 
fully. "  I  do  not  much  like  that.  However,"  with  a 
more  cheerful  air,  "  it  is  better  than  having  insanity  in 
the  family.  Poor  man  !  it  was  a  cowardly  way  of  cutting 
the  knot  ! " 

"The  25th,"  says  Belinda,  dropping  her  hands  into 


138  BELINDA. 


her  lap,  and  staring,  with  eyes  still  dilated,  straight  be- 
fore her  ;  "  that  was  the  day  we  went  to  Wesenstein  !  " 

"  There  is  more  about  him — another  little  paragraph  ! " 
says  Sarah,  resuming  her  reading.  "  Oh,  now  we  shall 
find  out  whom  he  married.  *  Mr.  Rivers  was  born  on  the 
1st  of  May,  18 — '  (Ah  !  Ten  and  ten,  twenty,  and  ten 
thirty,  forty — that  would  make  him  just  fifty-four) — cand 
was  the  eldest  son  of  the  late  Mr.  Rivers,  of  Denver  Hall, 
at  whose  death  the  property  was  sold,  in  consequence  of 
pecuniary  embarrassments.'  (Hem  !  they  seem  to  be  ad- 
dicted to  pecuniary  embarrassments.)  'It  was  repur- 
chased, five  years  ago,  by  Mr.  Rivers,  who  had  amassed  a 
large  fortune  in  the  iron-trade.  He  married,  on  the  3d  of 
June,  18 — ,  the  Lady  Marion  Lovell,  third  daughter  of 
the  late,  and  sister  of  the  present,  Earl  of  Eastwood' 
(bravo,  David  !  I  knew  that  he  was  not  undiluted  iron), 
4  by  whom  he  has  left  issue ' — a  good  deal  of  issue,  I  am 
afraid).  *  He  was  an  enlightened  patron  of  agriculture, 
and  belonged  to  several  agricultural  societies.  His  death 
will  be  widely  and  deeply  deplored.' "  She  lays  down  the 
paper.  "  That  is  all." 

"All!"  repeats  Belinda  in  an  awed  voice;  "and 
enough, too  ! " 

"  What  a  mercy  for  David  that  he  was  not  at  home  ! " 

"  He  will  not  think  so,"  replies  Belinda  sadly. 

"  He  will  avoid  most  of  the  horrors — coroner's  inquest 
and  all ! "  says  Sarah,  with  a  shiver  of  disgust.  "  I 
wonder  what  day  the  funeral  was  ?  You  could  not  expect 
him  to  write  before  that.  I  am  afraid  that  now  you  must 
not  hope  to  hear  before  we  leave." 

"  Of  course  not — of  course  not !  "  feverishly.  "  Poor 
boy  !  I  do  not  want  him  to  think  of  me  at  all ! " 

"  I  suspect  that  you  are  the  one  pleasant  thing  he  has 
to  think  about,"  replies  Sarah  dryly.  "  I  hope  to  heavens 
that  the  money — "  stopping  abruptly.  "  Will  you  believe 


BELINDA.  139 


it  ?  There  she  is  !  I  hear  her  voice.  She  has  come  to  tell 
us. — Tommy,  Tommy  ! "  flying  headlong  into  the  passage, 
"we  are  not  at  home — we  are  not  at  home  to  anybody" 

But,  as  usual,  it  is  too  late.  Punch,  indeed,  gallops  out 
in  aid,  barking  irefully.  It  is  not  that  bark  of  boisterous 
compliment  which  he  addresses  to  most  people,  but  one 
of  a  different  character — one  not  unfrequently  accompa- 
nied by  a  nip  at  the  heels  of  the  person  indicated  ;  a  bark 
which  he  reserves  exclusively  for  tramps  and  Miss  Wat- 
son. Slutty  has  instantly  crawled  on  her  stomach  under 
the  settee.  To  do  Tommy  justice,  he  has  opened  the  door 
as  little  as  he  possibly  could  ;  but  by  thrusting  her  person 
into  the  aperture,  Miss  Watson  has  succeeded  in  consid- 
erably widening  it,  and  now  stands  in  it,  talking  loudly 
and  brandishing  a  newspaper.  As  soon  as  she  catches 
sight  of  Sarah — 

"  Have  you  heard  ?  "  she  cries  eagerly.  "  Have  you 
seen  it  ?  Young  Bivers's  father's  death  ? — suicide  ?  I 
thought  you  might  not  have  seen  it." 

"  Of  course  we  have,"  replies  Sarah  curtly  ;  "  of  course 
we  have  our  papers  as  usual.  I  am  sorry  I  can  not  ask 
you  to  come  in  this  morning  ;  we  are  so — " 

"  Do  you  think  he  was  off  his  head  ?  "  asks  the  other, 
interrupting.  "Do  you  think  there  is  madness  in  the 
family  ?  If  so,  no  doubt  they  got  it  from  the  Lovells ; 
there  is  mostly  scrofula  of  one  form  or  another  in  all 
those  old  families." 

"  What  a  comfort  for  the  new  ones  !  "  answers  Sarah 
with  a  sneer.  "  Well,  I  am  afraid  that  we  are  so  busy 
packing — " 

"Were  not  you  surprised  to  hear  that  he  had  mar- 
ried one  of  the  Lovells  ?  I  had  not  an  idea  that  he  had 
married  one  of  the  Lovells.  He  did  not  get  a  penny  with 
her,  I  will  answer  for  it ;  they  are  as  poor  as  Job.  East- 
wood is  mortgaged  up  to  the  hall-door." 


140  BELINDA. 


"Is  it?  Well,  as  we  have  already  heard  your  news," 
taking  hold  of  the  door  with  a  determined  air — "  come  in, 
Punch,  or  you  will  be  shut  out  ! " 

"  What  papers  have  you  seen  ? "  asks  the  other  in- 
quisitively. "  I  wonder  is  the  account  the  same  in  them 
all  ?  Would  you  mind  my  having  a  look  at  yours  ?  " 

Sarah  shakes  her  head. 

"  Impossible  !     Granny  has  not  seen  them  !  " 

"  I  would  lend  you  mine  with  all  the  pleasure  in  life, 
only  that  am  just  going  to  run  round  with  it  to  the  Freres 
and  Gayhursts  ;  they  take  only  the  Times  /  there  are  not 
so  many  details  in  the  Times" 

A  surly  silence  is  the  only  response. 

"  Poor  fellow !  it  is  too  sad,  is  it  not  ? "  continues 
Miss  Watson,  her  large  face  beaming  with  pleasurable 
excitement.  "  I  do  not  know  when  I  have  felt  so  cut  up 
about  anything  !  I  shall  make  a  point  of  writing  to  him  ! 
shall  not  you  ?  " 

"  She  is  going  to  make  a  point  of  writing  to  him," 
says  Sarah  with  a  grimace,  rejoining  her  sister  a  moment 
or  two  later,  a  judiciously  placed  hint  as  to  the  probabil- 
ity of  some  one  being  beforehand  with  her  at  the  Gay- 
hursts  and  Freres  having  rid  her  of  her  visitor  ;  "  it  may 
be  a  bad  thing  to  lose  a  father,  but  it  is  very  much  worse 
to  be  consoled  for  him  by  Miss  Watson.  By-the-by," 
with  a  change  of  tone,  "  David  has  your  address,  has  not 
he — your  London  address — you  gave  it  him,  eh  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Ah,"  with  a  little  sigh  of  satisfaction,  "  that  is  all 
right  then !  The  sooner  we  get  to  England  the  better, 
for  all  reasons." 

Belinda  echoes  the  sentiment.  What  is  there  to  keep 
her  or  her  heart  here  now  ?  In  the  place  of  the  drag 
which  a  while  ago  she  would  have  put  upon  the  days,  she 


BELINDA. 


would  now  use  whip  and  spur  to  them.  If  Time  were  to 
obey  our  impulses,  in  what  a  strange  jerky  manner  would 
he  proceed  !  It  is  beyond  the  range  of  possibility  that 
she  should  receive  a  letter  from  him  here.  It  would  be 
the  height  of  filial  impiety.  How  dare  she  thrust  her 
trivial  self  between  him  and  the  grandeur  of  his  grief  ? 
How  dare  one  thought  of  her  cross  his  mind,  ere  yet  his 
father  is  laid  in  his  bloody  and  dishonored  grave  ?  But 
by  the  time  that  they  have  reached  England,  four  more 
days  will  have  elapsed. 

Mrs.  Churchill  has  stipulated  that  the  journey  shall  be 
accomplished  leisurely.  Once  in  England,  he  and  she 
will  at  all  events  be  separated  by  only  one  day's  post,  less 
than  a  day's  journey.  In  London  there  are  so  many  posts 
in  the  day !  Every  two  hours  does  not  there  come  a 
double  knock  ?  and  may  not  any  one  of  these  double 
knocks  possibly — nay,  why  be  irrationally  down-hearted  ? 
— probably  bring  her  salvation  ?  By  dint  of  continued 
cherishing,  her  hopes  soar  higher  still.  "Why  should  he 
write  ?  what  is  there  to  hinder  his  coming  himself  ?  In 
her  heart  she  hears  his  footfall  on  the  stairs  ;  it  will  fall 
more  softly  on  the  carpeted  London  steps  than  on  these 
bare  stone  ones.  Perhaps  it  will  be  less  springy  than  of 
yore  ;  grief  may  have  made  it  heavier  and  slower.  He 
will  enter  in  his  black  clothes  ;  she  has  never  seen  him  in 
black,  and  tries  to  reconstruct  him  in  this  somber  habit. 
He  will  not  smile,  it  would  not  be  right  that  he  should  ; 
but  he  will  stretch  out  his  arms  to  her — Tommy  being 
gone. 

At  this  point  her  face  always  falls  forward  into  her 
hands,  and  the  carnations  overrun  their  borders.  She  can 
no  more  look  at  that  picture  than  she  can  stare  unwinking 
at  the  mid-day  sun.  But  though  she  struggles  earnestly 
to  keep  hope  sober  and  low,  it  is  with  an  elastic  step  and 
a  bright  face  that  she  treads  the  platform  of  the  Dresden 


M2  BELINDA. 


railway  station  on  the  day  and  at  the  hour  of  their  de- 
parture. The  tickets  have  been  taken  ;  their  own,  that 
of  the  luggage,  Punch's.  Slutty  is  small  enough  to  de- 
fraud the  revenue  by  traveling  in  an  ingeniously  con- 
structed house  of  her  own,  which  has  the  air  of  a  large 
dressing-bag,  and  under  which  Belinda,  Sarah,  and  the 
maid  take  turns  to  stagger.  And  now  Mrs.  Churchill 
and  Belinda  have  already  seated  themselves  and  arranged 
their  packages.  Sarah  still  loiters  on  the  step,  half  the 
German  army  gathered  round  her.  She  has  asked  'them 
all  to  come  and  see  her  off,  and  not  one  but  has  answered 
to  the  call.  Her  hands  are  full  of  great  bouquets  that 
they  have  not  stretch  enough  to  hold.  She  is  distribut- 
ing more  addresses  than  she  has  time  rapidly  to  pencil. 
Apparently,  every  one  of  them  is  to  correspond  with  her. 
Belinda  has  no  bouquet,  and  no  one  has  asked  for  her 
direction.  Even  her  last  view  of  the  fair  city  is  ob- 
structed by  Sarah,  who  has  monopolized  the  window  to 
lean  out  and  kiss  her  fingers,  crying,  "Auf  Wieder- 
sehen  !  "  until  the  last  glimpse  of  her  dark-blue,  light- 
blue,  and  green  admirers  is  lost  to  sight.  And  yet  it  is 
with  a  light  heart,  that  sometimes  even  dances,  that  Miss 
Churchill  steams  away  toward  her  native  shores. 


PERIOD    II. 

"  Je  ne  comprends  pas  comme  on  pent  taut  penser  a  une  personne : 
n'aurai-je  jamais  tout  pense  ?  " 


CHAPTER  I. 

IT  is  November ;  the  second  November  since  the 
Churchills'  return  from  Dresden.  A  second  summer 
has  raced  after  a  second  spring ;  and  a  second  autumn 
is  pursuing  both.  The  full  tale  of  eighteen  months  is 
complete.  Time  has  swung  by  on  his  mighty  wings, 
which  all  the  centuries  are  powerless  to  tire,  bearing  in 
his  arms  diverse  gifts.  To  some  he  has  brought  satisfied 
ambition  ;  to  some  grinding  poverty  ;  to  some  a  surfeit 
of  pleasure  ;  to  some  a  mad-house  ;  and  to  some  a  grave. 
To  many  only  a  bundle  of  little  nagging  cares  and  pygmy 
pleasures,  that  passed  without  much  heeding. 

To  the  Churchills  he  has  brought— what  ?  To  Mrs. 
Churchill  a  beautiful  new  r  atelier  ;  to  Sarah,  six  new 
lovers  and  one  new  dog  ;  and  to  Belinda,  -a  knowledge  of 
the  postman's  step,  whether  distant  or  near,  that  she 
might  defy  any  inhabitant  of  this  or  any  other  street 
to  rival.  Before  her  return  home,  she  had  congratulated 
herself  upon  the  convenience  and  number  of  the  London 
posts.  Ere  six  months  are  out,  she  execrates  their  fre- 
quency. 

For  eighteen  months  Belinda  has  been  listening,  and 
not  once  have  her  ears  been  filled  with  the  sound  that 


BELINDA. 


they  are  ever  strained  to  catch.  Not  once  has  Rivers 
written.  Not  once  has  he  come  in  person  to  explain  his 
silence.  He  is  gone — simply  gone  out  of  her  life.  That 
is  all ! 

He  was  free,  of  course,  to  come  or  to  go  ;  as  she  tells 
herself,  she  can  not  quarrel  with  him  for  that.  The  why 
she  is  at  issue  with  him  is  that  he  has  taken  the  taste  of 
her  life  with  him.  For  her  he  has  taken  the  color  out  of 
the  sunsets,  and  the  music  out  of  the  larks.  She  looks  at 
the  beauty  of  our  mother  earth  with  a  grudging,  sullen 
eye.  The  summers  with  the  glories  of  their  roses  ;  the 
autumns  with  the  glories  of  their  sheaves,  are  to  her 
absolutely  waste  and  worthless. 

"  Even  if  he  came  back  to  me,"  she  says  to  herself  ; 
"  even  if  I  lived  to  be  ninety,  and  saw  him  henceforth 
every  day,  every  minute,  until  I  die,  I  could  never  fill  the 
emptiness  of  these  days  ;  they  will  always  have  been 
dead,  dead  loss  !  " 

Now  and  again  she  rises  up  in  revolt  against  the 
tyranny  of  the  idea  that  is  eating  into  and  corroding  her 
prime.  She  will  cut  him  out  of  her  life  ;  will  cut  off  that 
portion  of  her  life  in  which  he  had  concern,  sheer  away, 
like  a  precipice. 

"  I  did  well  before  I  knew  him,"  she  says  to  herself, 
with  a  sort  of  indignation  ;  "  he  was  in  the  world,  and  so 
was  I ;  he  smiled  as  he  does  now — does  he  smile  now,  I 
wonder  ? — and  I  was  none  the  worse  for  it.  He  did  not 
blot  out  the  sun  ;  he  did  not  make  it  up-hill  work  to  eat, 
to  speak,  to  breathe.  Let  things  be  as  they  were  then. 
Why  can  not  they  be  ?  They  shall  be  !  " 

For  a  moment  she  is  strong  and  light-hearted  ;  sings 
a  gay  verse  of  a  song  ;  feels  the  goodliness  of  youth. 
Then  a  sick  qualm  comes  over  her.  It  is  gone,  done 
with !  and  the  whole  earth,  the  whole  of  life,  is  empty, 
hideous,  void  ! 


BELINDA. 


It  is  November  ;  the  afternoon  is  drawing  toward  its 
close.  Tea  has  been  drunk,  and  visitors  are  gone.  The 
hour  of  dressing  draws  nigh.  This,  however,  is  a  fact 
that  neither  Mrs.  Churchill  nor  Sarah  is  willing  to  admit  : 
Mrs.  Churchill,  because  her  drive  has  made  her  sleepy,  and 
fire  and  owl-light  are  drowsy  and  soothing ;  Sarah,  be- 
cause she  is  absorbed  in  the  ingenious  if  not  useful  em- 
ployment of  painting  the  large  white  terrier  lately  added 
to  the  establishment,  in  colored  stripes  and  spots  to  repre- 
sent a  clown.  Jane  is,  happily  for  herself,  not  a  sensi- 
tive dog,  and  submits  with  stolid  good-humor  to  a  pro- 
cess that  would  penetrate  Slutty's  heart  with  agonies  of 
undying  shame. 

"Belinda  is  late,"  says  Mrs.  Churchill,  drawing  her- 
self up  into  a  sitting  posture,  the  first  preparatory  step 
toward  the  unavoidable,  dreaded  move  up-stairs. 

"I  hope  she  will  not  come  back  until  Jane  is  fin- 
ished," answers  Sarah  warmly,  hesitating  for  an  instant 
in  the  choice  of  a  pigment ;  while  Jane  opens  her  mouth 
in  a  large,  bored,  patient  yawn. 

"  Perhaps  she  did  not  find  it  so  tiresome  as  she  ex- 
pected," says  Mrs.  Churchill,  reluctantly  taking  the  sec- 
ond step  toward  departure,  and  rising  to  her  feet. 

"Perhaps  not,"  replies  Sarah  absently,  drawing  back 
her  head  the  better  to  judge  of  the  effect  of  a  large 
splash  of  gamboge,  just  applied  upon  Jane's  right  cheek. 

"  What  an  object  you  are  making  of  that  poor  dog  ! " 
laughing  lazily. 

"  She  likes  it !  "  replies  Sarah  gravely.  "  She  thinks 
it  is  becoming.  Do  not  tell  her  it  is  not.  If  she  is  a  suc- 
cess, I  mean  to  paint  the  others  as  Harlequin  and  Colum- 
bine !  " 

"I  wish  Belinda  would  come,"  says  Mrs.  Churchill, 
with  a  little  comfortable  curiosity  in  nowise  akin  to  the 
loving,  foolish  solicitude  that  thinks  that  some  unlikely 
7 


146  BELINDA. 


misfortune  must  have  happened  to  its  beloved,  if  he  or 
she  be  detained  five  minutes  beyond  his  or  her  usual  time. 

"  I  hope  she  will  not  come  until  Jane  is  finished  !  "  re- 
peats Sarah  seriously,  working  away  with  redoubled  ardor. 

"I  think  she  must  have  been  amused." 

"  H'm  !  "  replies  Sarah  dubiously.  "  If  she  is,  she  is 
the  first  person  in  whom  that  emotion  was  ever  pro- 
voked by  an  afternoon  drum  ;  and  Belinda  is  not  easily 
amused.  "I  think,"  with  quiet  pride,  "that  Jane  will 
amuse  her.  Ah,  how  provoking  !  Here  she  is  !  "  " 

In  effect,  as  the  last  words  leave  her  lips  the  door 
opens,  and  her  sister  enters.  If  your  eyes  were  shut,  or 
if  you  were  blind,  your  ear  would  never  have  told  you 
that  it  was  a  young  person's  entrance,  so  measured  and 
unelastic  is  her  step. 

"  Do  not  come  here  !  Do  not  look  at  Jane  ! "  cries 
Sarah  in  an  agonized  voice,  hastily  throwing  the  cloth  on 
which  she  has  been  wiping  her  brushes  over  Jane's  long- 
suffering  back.  "  Stay  where  you  are  !  No  !  Now  you 
may  come  ! " 

"  Which  am  I  to  do  ? "  asks  Belinda ;  and  her  voice 
has  as  little  spring  in  it  as  her  step. 

"  Well  ? "  cries  Mrs.  Churchill  in  a  voice  of  cheerful 
expectancy,  ready  to  abridge  her  dressing-time,  to  sit 
down  again  and  be  amused. 

"  Well  ?  "  replies  Belinda  unresponsively. 

She  has  advanced  to  the  fire,  and  now  stands  there,  a 
foot  on  the  fender,  for  the  evening  is  chill ;  while  the 
cheerful  flames,  upspringing,  play  upon  the  uncheerful 
beauty  of  her  face,  and  lend  a  little  of  their  own  dancing 

to  the 

"  Eyes  too  expressive  to  be  blue, 
Too  lovely  to  be  gray," 

that  have  no  dancing  of  their  own  in  them. 

"  You  are  the  worst  person  in  the  world  to  send  out," 


BELINDA.  147 


says  Mrs.  Churchill,  disappointed  and  cross  ;  "  for  all  the 
news  you  bring  back,  you  might  as  well  stay  at  home." 

A  couple  of  years  ago,  Belinda  would  have  pleasantly 
acquiesced  in  her  own  lack  of  observation  ; .  would  have 
cheerfully  tried  to  remedy  it.  Now  she  only  answers, 
with  a  sullen  look  : 

"  What  is  there  to  tell  ?  What  is  there  ever  to  tell 
about  a  drum  ?  There  was  a  mob  of  women,  and  a  smell 
of  hot  seal-skins  ! " 

"  Not  a  man,  of  course  ?  "  asks  Sarah  from  the  distant 
corner  of  the  room,  whither  she  had  retired  with  the  incho- 
ate Jane,  to  pursue  her  artistic  labors  unseen.  "  How  glad 
I  am  I  did  not  go  ! " 

Belinda  smiles.  When  she  smiles,  you  see  even  more 
clearly  than  when  she  is  grave  the  inexpressible  hardening 
which  has  happened  to  her  face. 

"  There  were  two  or  three  men." 

"The  usual  refuse  that  you  meet  in  a  second-class 
literary  salon,  I  suppose,"  rejoins  Sarah  contemptuously. 
"  Dirty  little  poets,  and  greasy  little  positivists  ?  " 

Belinda  still  smiles  a  smile  that  is  without  gayety,  but 
is  not  without  satire. 

"  There  was  one  man  there  whom  you  did  not  think 
too  grimy  to  bestow  a  good  deal  of  your  notice  upon  at 
one  period  of  your  history." 

"  Who  ? "  asks  Sarah,  pricking  up  her  ears  with 
awakened  yet  puzzled  interest.  "You  would  not  be 
likely  to  meet  any  of  my  friends  there,  I  should  hope." 

"Guess!" 

"  Je  vous  le  donne  en  trois  ;  je  vous  le  donne  en  dix ; 
je  vous  le  donne  en  mille!"  says  Mrs.  Churchill,  who  at 
the  unsealing  of  her  granddaughter's  lips  has  recovered 
her  good-humor.  "  Was  it — pooh  !  what  a  memory  I  have 
— Signor  Valetta,  the  singing-master,  who  went  down  on 
his  knees  in  the  middle  of  the  lesson  ?  " 


148  BELINDA. 


"No." 

"  I  have  it !  It  was  the  German  who  wrote  'Ich  liebe 
dick  ! '  on  the  fly-leaf  of  the  grammar  !  " 

"  It  was  not !  " 

Sarah  has  paused,  brush  in  hand,  her  brows  furrowed 
by  her  efforts  to  repass  in  her  mind's  eye  the  crowded 
phalanx  of  her  suitors. 

"  They  were  the  nearest  approach  to  literature  I  ever 
made,"  she  says  doubtfully  ;  except " — a  sudden  rush  of 
color  and  animation  into  face  and  eyes — "except — no  ! 
it  could  not  have  been  ;  it  was  not — was  it — Professor 
Forth?" 

"It  was  Professor  Forth." 

"  How  awkward  for  you  ! "  cries  Mrs.  Churchill,  in- 
terested ;  "  and  of  course  he  is  not  man  of  the  world 
enough  to  carry  off  the  gdne  of  such  a  meeting  !  " 

In  the  emotion  of  the  moment,  Sarah  has  uninten- 
tionally released  Jane,  who  now  trots  composedly  back 
to  the  fire,  her  incomplete  face  white  on  one  side  and 
garishly  painted  on  the  other — a  fact  which,  even  when 
taken  in  connection  with  the  distrustful  and  angry  won- 
der of  the  other  dogs,  is  powerless  to  rob  her  of  her  Stoic 
calm. 

"  Did  he  speak  to  you  ?  Did  you  speak  to  him  ? " 
cries  Sarah  in  high  excitement,  running  back  to  the 
hearth. 

"  I  talked  to  him  for  a  good  half -hour." 

"He  accepted  the  situation,  in  short,"  says  Mrs. 
Churchill.  "Well,  that  was  more  than  I  should  have 
expected  of  him." 

"  Did  he  mention  me  ?  Of  course  he  mentioned  me  ?  " 
asked  Sarah  eagerly. 

"  He  inquired  after  granny  ;  and  then  he  put  you  in 
as  an  after-thought." 

"  I  dare  say  that  he  could  not  command  his  voice  to 


BELINDA. 


ask  after  me  at  first  ?  "  cries  the  other,  laughing.  "  Did 
his  voice  tremble  at  all  ?  I  hope  it  trembled." 

"  Not  in  the  very  least." 

"  You  talked  to  him  for  half  an  hour  ?  "What  did  you 
talk  about  ?  " 

"  We  talked  about  Browning's  poetry." 

"  Browning's  poetry ! "  with  a  disgusted  accent. 
"  What  a  bore  for  you !  I  thought  that  of  course  you 
would  have  talked  about  me  !  " 

"  Bore  ! "  repeats  Belinda,  with  a  sort  of  bitter  ani- 
mation. "  I  thought  it  such  a  blessing.  I  did  not  want 
to  talk  about  you,  or  myself  either,  or  granny  ;  we  are 
always  talking  about  you  and  myself  and  granny.  It 
was  such  a  relief  to  get  away  once  in  a  while  from  people, 
and  turn  to  things  !  " 

"  I  must  say  that  Browning  is  a  great  deal  too  clever 
for  me,"  puts  in  Mrs.  Churchill  contentedly.  "  I  am  very 
fond  of  poetry,  but  I  like  something  that  I  can  understand." 

"  But  did  you  talk  about  nothing  but  Browning's  po- 
etry ?  "  inquires  Sarah,  incredulously  lifting  her  eyebrows. 
"  Did  you  talk  about  it  the  whole  time  ?  " 

"We  had  hardly  exhausted  the  subject  in  half  an 
hour,"  replies  Belinda,  with  a  disagreeable  sneer.  "  And 
then  he  read  aloud  ;  he  was  asked  to  read  aloud  ! " 

"  And  you  all  sat  round  worshiping  !  "  exclaims  Sa- 
rah, breaking  into  new  laughter.  "  That  is  exactly  what 
they  did  at  the  house  I  first  met  him  at.  You  may  not 
credit  it,  but  I  sat  round  worshiping  too  ! " 

"  They  were  rather  fulsome  !  "  replies  Belinda,  her  lip 
curling  at  the  recollection. 

"And  what  did  he  read?  Did  he  read  anything 
amusing  ?  But  of  course  he  did  not !  " 

"  He  read  *  The  Grammarian's  Funeral.'  " 

"  *  The  Grammarian 's  Funeral '  /  "  repeats  Mrs. 
Churchill,  with  a  shrug.  "  What  a  name  f qr  a  poem  !  " 


150  BELINDA. 


"  *  The  Grammarian's  Funeral ' !  "  echoes  Sarah,  but 
with  an  emotion  different  from  her  grandmother's  color- 
ing her  tone.  "That  was  the  very  poem  he  read  the 
night  I  first  met  him.  I  could  not  make  head  or  tail  of 
it ;  but  I  pretended  that  I  thought  it  very  fine.  Belinda, 
beware  !  or  this  family  may  have  a  second  time  cause  to 
rue  that  that  Grammarian  ever  was  buried  ! " 

"  How  curious,  your  meeting  him  !  "  said  Mrs.  Church- 
ill, with  an  amused,  leisurely  smile.  "  How  it  must  have 
reminded  you  of  Dresden  !  " 

Belinda  shudders  a  little.  There  is  so  much  need  to 
remind  her  of  Dresden  !  And  yet  she  herself  has  been 
surprised  at  the  extra  vividness  with  which  the  sight  and 
bodily  presence  of  one  of  the  subordinate  actors  in  the 
little  drama  enacted  there  has  brought  it  back  to  her.  Is 
her  memory  growing  habitually  dull  ?  Oh,  if  it  but  were 
so! 

"  Is  his  mother  alive  still  ?  "  asks  Sarah,  striking  hastily 
in  to  divert  the  conversation  from  the  channel  into  which 
her  grandmother  seems  disposed  to  direct  it.  I  hope  you 
were  not  behindhand  in  civility  ;  and  that  as  he  remem- 
bered to  ask  after  our  old  lady,  you  remembered  to  ask 
after  his." 

"  I  did  not ;  I  thought  she  might  be  dead,  but  I  do 
not  think  she  is.  He  mentioned  her  ;  he  said  something 
about  *  my  mother.'  " 

"Then  of  course  she  is  not  dead  ! "  answers  Sarah  de- 
cisively ;  "  if  she  had  been  he  would  have  said,  *  My  poor 
mother  ! '  Granny,  when  you  are  dead,  I  mean  always  to 
talk  of  you  as  c  my  poor  granny  ' !  " 

"  Do  you  indeed,  my  dear  !  "  rather  sharply.  "  Let 
me  tell  you  that  I  have  no  intention  of  giving  you  the 
opportunity  just  yet ! " 

"Did  he  say  anything  about  coming  to  call?"  asks 
Sarah,  with  an  interested  look. 


BELINDA.  151 


"Not  a  word." 

"  Did  lie  give  you  the  impression  that  he  was  contem- 
plating it  ?  " 

"  Not  in  the  least." 

"  Do  you  think  that  he  will  ?  " 

"  I  should  think  certainly  not ;  indeed,  he  is  going  back 
to  Oxbridge  to-morrow.  I  wish  I  were  going  to  Oxbridge 
to-morrow  !  I  wish,"  restlessly,"  that  we  lived  at  Oxbridge." 

"  To  be  near  him  ?  "  asks  Sarah,  laughing. 

Her  sister  joins  in  the  laugh,  but  without  heartiness. 

"  Not  exactly  ;  but  from  what  he  says — from  what 
every  one  says — there  must  be  such  a  continual  stir  of  in- 
tellectual life  going  on  there." 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  cries  Sarah  shocked  ;  "  what  has 
happened  to  you  ?  You  are  growing  to  talk  just  as  he 
does  ;  those  are  the  kind  of  things  he  used  to  say  to  me, 
and  expect  me  to  provide  them  with  suitable  answers  ! " 

"  It  does  sound  high-f alutin',"  answers  Belinda,  rather 
ashamed  ;  "  but  it  is  not,  really  :  it  is  only  that  I  would 
give  anything  to  get  out  of  our  own  little  groove  into  any 
other." 

"  I  like  our  little  groove,"  says  Sarah  contentedly ; 
"by-the-by,  that  reminds  me  —  Jane,  where  are  you? 
Jane,  how  dare  you  ?  How  can  you  be  so  indelicate  as 
to  present  yourself  half  dressed  to  Punch  and  Slutty  ? 
Come  here  this  instant !  " 

But  Jane,  though  giving  a  slavish  leer  and  a  syco- 
phantic wag  of  her  disfigured  tail,  makes  no  movement 
toward  exchanging  her  warm  couch  on  the  deep  rug  for 
the  uncomfortable  glories  of  the  palette  and  the  brush. 

"It  may  not  be  a  bad  little  groove  for  those  who  like 
it,"  rejoins  Belinda  discontentedly;  "but  it  is  pleasant 
to  get  a  glimpse  beyond  it  now  and  then.  I  do  not  know 
when  I  have  been  so  little  bored  as  I  have  been  this  after- 
noon." 


152  BELINDA. 


CHAPTER  II. 

SHE  says  the  same  thing  to  herself  in  the  solitude  of 
her  own  room  —  that  solitude  where  the  least  truthful 
speaks  truth.  She  says  it  again  when  she  awakes  next 
morning.  Is  it  possible  that  an  avenue  to  renewed  in- 
terest in  life  may  be  opening  before  her  ?  Others — Pro- 
fessor Forth,  for  instance — have  lived  and  live  by  the  in- 
tellect ;  live  to  all  appearance  worthily  and  contentedly. 
Why  may  not  she  too  ?  What — her  heart  being  stone- 
dead — is  there  to  prevent  her  ? 

"If  you  please,  'm,"  says  Tommy  next  day  in  the 
afternoon,  appearing  in  the  doorway  of  the  little  back 
sitting-room,  litter-room,  dirt-hole,  where  a  special  cause 
has  gathered  the  three  ladies  of  the  Churchill  family, 
"  there  is  a  gentleman  from  Higgins  and  Rawson  in  the 
hall." 

It  is  a  new  Tommy  ;  the  old  one,  having  bloomed  out 
into  increased  size  and  new  vices,  has  been  superseded  ;  a 
new  Tommy  with  a  cherub  face,  but  an  education  for  his 
profession  that  as  yet  leaves  much  to  be  desired. 

"  A  gentleman  from  Higgins  and  Rawson  ! "  repeats 
Mrs.  Churchill  indignantly  ;  "  there  are  no  gentlemen  at 
Higgins  and  Rawson's— it  is  a  haberdasher's  shop  !  Ask 
him  his  business." 

The  cherub  retires,  trembling,  and  his  mistress's  atten- 
tion returns  to  the  object  from  which  his  entrance  had 
diverted  it — the  object  which  has  called  both  herself 
and  her  granddaughters  hither.  It  is  the  washing  of  the 
dogs,  a  function  periodically  celebrated  and  reveled  in 
by  Sarah. 

Jane  is  already  washed  ;  she  is  a  pushing  dog,  always 
putting  herself  forward,  and  claiming  the  chief  seats  in 
the  synagogues.  Candescently  white,  cleansed  from  stain 


BELINDA.  153 


of  indigo  and  ochre,  no  longer  comic,  but  gravely  beauti- 
ful, she  lies  in  glory,  drying  on  a  blanket.  It  is  now  the 
martyred  Slutty  who  is  in  the  wash-tub,  dripping  re- 
signedly, while  Sarah's  strong  white  arm  is  employed  in 
vigorously  scrubbing  her  fat  back,  and  the  soapsuds  are 
falling  into  her  dreadfully  goggling  eyes. 

Punch  is  seated  in  a  deep  dejection  not  usual  with 
him  a  good  distance  off,  well  aware  that  his  fate  also  is 
hurrying  to  overtake  him,  but  trying  to  imagine  that  he 
may  avoid  it  by  remaining  seated  in  the  middle  distance, 
and  totally  refusing  to  reply  when  addressed. 

Belinda  sits  by,  occasionally  lending  a  helping  hand 
when  Slutty  struggles,  and  occasionally  turning  a  page 
of  the  volume  of  Browning,  which,  in  pursuance  of  her 
intention  of  living  henceforth  by  the  intellect,  lies  open 
on  her  knees. 

Tommy  has  again  appeared. 

"If  you  please,  'm,  there  is  a  lady  with  a  tambou- 
rine— " 

"  A  lady  with  a  tambourine  !  "  repeats  Mrs.  Church- 
ill, in  an  awful  voice.  "What  do  you  mean,  Tom- 
my ?  Ladies  do  not  play  tambourines  about  the  streets  ! 
You  mean  a  woman  with  a  tambourine !  Send  her 
away." 

A  second  time  Tommy  retires  discomfited,  but  not 
for  long.  After  a  short  absence  he  returns. 

"  If  you  please,  'm,  there  is  a  person  in  the  hall  wishes 
to  speak  to  you." 

"  A  person  ! "  echoes  Mrs.  Churchill  commendingly. 
"  Come,  that  is  better  !  A  shopman,  I  suppose  !  Did 
he  say  what  shop  had  sent  him  ?  " 

"  Please,  'm,  I  do  not  think  he  is  a  gentleman  from — 
I  do  not  think  he  is  from  a  shop  at  all.  He  said  his  name 
was  Forth,  and  asked  me  to  give  you  this  card  "  (present- 
ing one). 


154:  BELINDA. 


As  her  eyes  fall  upon  it,  Mrs.  Churchill  jumps  up  with 
a  little  shriek. 

"  Good  heavens ! "  she  cries,  aghast,  "  it  is  Professor 
Forth  !  What  do  you  mean,  Tommy,  by  calling  him  a 
'  person,'  and  leaving  him  in  the  hall  ?  Show  him  up  to 
the  drawing-room  at  once  !  " 

"  Please.,  5m,"  replies  Tommy,  whimpering,  "  you  said 
as  how  I  was  not  to  call  'em  gentlemen." 

"  So  he  has  come  ! "  cries  Sarah,  in  a  rather  triumphant 
voice,  raising  a  beaming  face  from  the  middle  of  the 
steam  and  suds.  "  Do  not  you  think  he  would  like  to  see 
the  dogs  washed  ?  " 

"  I  can  not  think  what  has  brought  him,"  says  Mrs. 
Churchill,  in  a  vexed  voice  ;  "  that  class  of  people  has  no 
tact.  I  never  could  find  a  word  to  say  to  him.  Now, 
pray,  Sarah,  do  not  make  a  fool  of  him  again  !  It  is  all 
very  well  for  you,  but  you  do  not  reflect  what  a  nuisance 
he  is  to  Belinda  and  me  ! " 

"He  is  no  nuisance  to  me  ! "  replies  Belinda  coldly  ; 
"  I  am  glad  he  has  come.  I  wanted  to  talk  to  him  !  I 
do  not  think  he  has  come  to  see  Sarah ;  I  think  he  has 
come  to  see  me  ! " 

She  says  it  with  cool,  positive,  indifferent  composure. 
With  as  much  coolness,  as  much  indifference,  as  much 
composure,  she  walks  up  the  stairs  and  into  the  drawing- 
room,  pursued  by  her  sister's  message  : 

"  Tell  him  that  I  am  coming  directly,  but  that,  with 
me,  even  Love  cedes  to  Duty,  and  I  must  finish  washing 
Slutty." 

Mr.  Forth  is  looking  toward  the  door  as  Belinda 
enters  ;  and  an  indescribable  air  of  relief  steals  over  his 
countenance  when  he  perceives  that  she  is  alone. 

"  I  have  taken  the  liberty  of  calling,"  he  begins  for- 
mally ;  but  she  interrupts  him. 

"  I  am  glad  to  see  you,"  she  says,  with  a  direct  look 


BELINDA.  155 


of  cold  sincerity.  "  I  wanted  to  talk  to  you.  Will  you 
sit  down  ?  " 

And  yet,  now  that  the  opportunity  for  gratifying 
that  want  has  come,  she  seems  for  a  while  to  lack  the 
power. 

According  to  his  chilly  wont,  he  has  chosen  the  seat 
nearest  the  fire,  opposite  the  window,  and  she  has  placed 
herself  on  the  other  side.  As  she  looks  in  his  face,  a 
cataract  of  agonizing  memories  pours  storming  over  her 
heart.  In  the  throng  and  bustle  of  last  night,  memory 
had  not  been  half  so  busy.  She  had  thought  that  she 
could  see  him  without  pain  ;  with  only  that  dull  numb- 
ness with  which  she  sees  small  and  great.  But  now  she 
finds  that  for  her  in  each  wrinkle  traced  by  thought 
about  his  eyes — in  each  pucker  of  discontent  around  his 
lips — there  lurks  a  demon  of  recollection. 

The  little  wintry,  fog-thickened  London  drawing- 
room  has  changed  to  the  sunny  Dresden  salon.  It  is 
full  again  of  Sarah's  pungent  pleasantries  at  her  lover's 
cost,  and  of  Rivers's  resounding  laughs  at  them.  A  hun- 
dred worthless  speeches  of  Rivers's,  ridiculing  the  other's 
foibles,  his  muffetees,  his  parsimony,  his  digestion — 
speeches  trivial  and  merry  when  spoken,  now  solemn  and 
woful,  rush  back  upon  her  mind.  Oh,  if  her  heart  should 
turn  out  not  to  be  stone-dead  after  all !  But  it  must ! — 
it  must ! — it  shall  ! 

Her  silence  has  lasted  longer  than  she  is  aware,  and 
there  is  a  slight  tone  of  offense — to  that,  too,  a  memory 
is  tied — in  her  visitor's  voice,  as  he  says  : 

"  I  hope  I  have  not  chosen  an  inopportune  moment 
for  my  visit  ?  " 

"  Not  at  all !  not  at  all  ! "  she  answers  hastily ;  but 
the  composure  with  which  she  had  entered  the  room,  had 
first  addressed  him,  is  gone  ;  a  fever  has  come  into  her 
cheek,  and  a  hurry  into  her  words.  "  As  I  told  you,  I  am 


156  BELINDA. 


glad  to  see  you.  I  want  to  talk  to  you.  Why  have  not 
you  gone  back  to  Oxbridge  ?  " 

"  I  am  to  return  by  the  4.45  train,"  he  replies  ;  "  and 
I  thought  that  I  could  not  better  utilize  the  moments  left 
me  than  by — " 

"Yes,  yes,  I  understand,"  she  cries,  brusquely  pushing 
aside  his  civilities.  "  I  want  to  ask  you — I  want  you  to  tell 
me — I  suppose  that  you  are  a  competent  judge — is  not  it 
quite  possible  for  a  person  to  live  entirely  by  the  intellect  ?  " 

He  looks  at  her  doubtfully.  Such  a  question  in  the 
mouth  of  a  Churchill,  his  experience  of  Sarah  has  taught 
him  profoundly  to  distrust. 

"  I  mean,"  she  says,  nervously  plucking  at  the  Japa- 
nese hand-screen  that  she  has  taken  up  to  shade  her  face 
— hot,  but  not  with  fire-heat — "  I  mean,"  panting  a  little, 
"  do  not  you  think  that  that  is  the  best  life — the  most 
satisfactory  on  the  whole — the  least  liable  to  interruption 
and  disappointment — that  is  built  upon — upon — books, 
you  know — upon  the — the  mind  ! " 

"  You  must  be  aware,"  he  answers  frigidly,  "  that  the 
whole  tendency  of  my  teaching  is  to  show  that  the  pur- 
suit of  knowledge  is  the  only  one  that  really  and  abun- 
dantly rewards  the  labor  bestowed  upon  it." 

"  You  think  so  ? "  she  answers  breathlessly,  leaning 
eagerly  forward,  and  fixing  her  large  heart-hungry  eyes 
upon  him.  "  You  think  that  it  would  be  enough — that 
it  would  satisfy  one — that  one  would  not  need  anything 
beyond  ?  " 

There  is  an  inexpressibly  sorrowful  yearning  in  the 
accent  with  which  she  pronounces  this  last  phrase.  Oh, 
if  he  could  but  furnish  her  with  this  anodyne,  how  she 
would  fall  on  her  knees  and  bless  him  ! 

"  Since  there  is  no  limit  to  the  domain  of  the  know- 
able,"  he  is  beginning,  when  again  she  breaks  in  upon 
him : 


BELINDA.  157 


"  No,  no  !  of  course  not !  I  understand  !  but  how  to 
get  at  it,  that  is  the  question  !  I  thought — I  imagined — I 
hoped — that  perhaps  you  might  help  me — might  direct 


me  ! 


f » 


Again  he  looks  at  her  suspiciously.  Is  not  this  the 
very  same  request  with  which  the  mendacious  Sarah  had 
opened  her  fire  upon  him  ?  Is  this  a  thirst  for  learning 
of  the  same  character,  and  that  is  likely  to  be  quenched 
with  the  same  surprising  ease  ? 

"  Of  course,"  she  goes  on  hastily,  mistaking  the  source 
of  his  hesitation,  "  I  can  not  expect  you  to  waste  much 
time  upon  me  ;  but  I  thought  that — that — perhaps,  you 
might  be  inclined  to  set  me  on  the  way  ;  to — to — lend 
me  a  book  or  two  every  now  and  then." 

"  I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  lending  books,"  he  answers, 
still  suspiciously  ;  "  but  I  should  be  happy  to  make  an  ex- 
ception in  your  favor,  were  I  convinced  that  your  desire 
for  self -education  were  a  genuine  one." 

"  Genuine  ! "  she  cries,  indignant  and  astonished. 
"  Why,  what  else  should  it  be  ?  What  motive  could  I 
have  for  feigning  it  ?  " 

A  slight  look  of  embarrassment,  mixed  with  mortifica- 
tion, crosses  his  face. 

"  You  can  not  have  forgotten,"  he  says,  "  the  interest 
in  literature  counterfeited  by  your  sister — " 

He  stops  suddenly  ;  for,  as  if  the  mention  of  her  had 
conjured  up  her  bodily  presence,  at  the  same  instant  she 
enters,  protected  by  her  grandmother  and  by  a  tempest  of 
clean  dogs. 

"  How  are  you  ?  "  cries  she,  holding  out  her  hand  to 
him  with  the  same  easy,  jovial  smile  as  if  they  had  parted 
yesterday  on  the  best  of  terms.  No  confusion  born  of 
the  recollection  of  their  last  meeting  troubles  her  good- 
humor.  No  doubt  as  to  the  present  visit  being  addressed 
to  her  ruffles  her  mind.  None  such  apparently  results 


158  BELINDA. 


from  the  precipitancy  with  which,  upon  her  entry,  her  ex- 
lover  begins  to  seek  his  hat,  and  murmur  of  his  train. 

"  And  about  the  books  ?  "  says  Belinda,  with  a  hesi- 
tating wistfulness  when  her  turn  comes  to  be  bidden 
good-by  to.  "  You  will  not  forget  about  the  books  ?  " 

It  seems  to  her  as  if  he  were  carrying  off  her  new, 
faint,  feverish  hope  with  him,  and  she  can  not  let  it  go 
without  a  struggle. 

"  I  will  think  of  it,"  he  answers  hurriedly,  with  a  dis- 
trustful glance  at  Sarah  ;  "  I — I  will  let  you  know." 

"What  about  books?"  asks  Sarah  inquisitively,  as 
soon  as  the  door  has  closed  upon  him.  "  Is  he  going  to 
lend  you  books  ?  The  old  villain !  it  was  with  books 
that  he  first  beguiled  my  young  affections.  I  believe 
that  he  is  like  Jacob  :  not  having  been  able  to  obtain 
Rachel,  he  is  going  to  try  and  put  up  with  Leah  !  eh, 
Leah?" 

"  What  an  untidy  way  he  has  of  sitting  !  "  says  Mrs. 
Churchill  pettishly,  advancing  to  set  right  the  chair  lately 
occupied  by  their  guest ;  "  these  loose  chair-covers  are  a 
mistake.  I  am  sure  I  hope  that  he  will  be  in  no  hurry  to 
repeat  his  visit.  One  thing  is  certain  ;  not  one  of  us  ex- 
pressed the  slightest  wish  to  see  him  again !  " 

"If  I  did  not  express  it,  I  felt  it,"  answers  Belinda 
perversely.  "I  wish  to  see  him  again." 

Mrs.  Churchill's  sole  response  is  a  silent  shrug,  a  mode 
lately  adopted  by  her  and  Sarah  of  receiving  the  starts 
and  frets  of  Belinda's  temper  —  that  temper  once  so 
smooth  and  sweet — a  mode  of  expressing  that  they  are 
to  be  endured,  not  argued  with. 

"  How  curiously  ugly  he  is ! "  cries  Sarah,  chuckling 
at  the  recollection.  "  I  could  hardly  help  laughing  when 
I  looked  at  him  ;  he  is  like  Charles  Lamb's  Mrs.  Conrady : 
'  No  one  ever  saw  Mrs.  Conrady  without  pronouncing  her 
to  be  the  plainest  woman  that  he  ever  met  with  in  the 


BELINDA.  159 


course  of  his  life.  The  first  time  that  you  are  indulged 
with  a  sight  of  her  face  is  an  era  in  your  existence  ever 
after.  You  are  glad  to  have  seen  it — like  Stonehenge  ! '  " 

Mrs.  Churchill  laughs  lazily.  "  What  a  memory  you 
have,  child ! " 

"  I  can  go  on,  if  you  like,"  continues  Sarah,  encouraged 
by  this  praise.  " '  No  one  can  pretend  to  forget  it.  No 
one  ever  apologized  to  her  for  meeting  her  in  the  street 
on  such  a  day  and  not  knowing  her ;  the  pretext  would 
be  too  bare.' " 

"You  have  always  grossly  underrated  him,"  says 
Belinda  severely  ;  "there  is  a  side  of  him,  an  intellectual 
side,  which  you  are  totally  incapable  of  appreciating ! " 

"  Totally  ! "  assents  her  sister  placidly  ;  "  and  so,  I 
hoped,  were  you  !  " 

"  At  least  I  know  that  it  is  there ! "  cries  Belinda 
angrily,  beginning  to  walk  restlessly  about  the  room 
after  a  fashion  that  she  has  adopted  during  the  last 
year — a  fashion  that  is  somewhat  trying  to  her  house- 
mates' patience.  "  I  recognize  it ;  I  admit  it ;  I  would 
imitate  it  if  I  could  !  " 

"  Since  when  ?  "  asks  Sarah  dryly. 

There  is  something  in  her  apparently  harmless  ques- 
tion which  jars  upon  Belinda's  sick  nerves. 

"It  is  very  hard,"  she  breaks  out,  reddening,  "that 
one  should  be  thrown  back  and  ridiculed  here,  when  one 
makes  any  least  effort  to  improve  one's  self !  What  is 
the  use  of  making  any  attempt  in  such  an  atmosphere 
as  this  ?  What  is  the  use  of  struggling — of  trying — " 

She  bursts  into  stormy  tears,  and  leaves  the  room. 

"  Her  temper  is  becoming  impossible  !  "  exclaims  Mrs. 
Churchill,  holding  up  her  pretty  old,  white  hands. 

But  Sarah  only  says  "  Poor  dear  ! "  in  a  very  lenient 
voice,  and  kisses  all  the  dogs. 


160  BELINDA. 


CHAPTER  III. 

'  THE  year  declines  toward  its  mirk  close.  Every  day 
a  little  more  is  taken  from  the  light  and  added  to  the 
dark.  London  is  full  and  cheerful ;  with  a  pleasanter, 
friendlier,  more  leisurely  social  stir  than  the  overpowering 
June  one.  Two  or  three  good  pieces  are  running  at  the 
theatres,  and  the  shop-windows  are  warm  with  furs. 
Round  the  Churchills  a  crop  of  small  dinners  and  dances 
has  sprung  up. 

The  time  nears  mid-December.  Mrs.  Churchill's 
wish  as  to  the  non -repetition  of  Professor  Forth's  visit 
has  met  with  the  usual  fate  of  wishes.  He  has  come 
again  repeatedly  ;  so  repeatedly  that  the  dogs  have  ceased 
barking  at  him,  though  they  are  not  so  hypocritical  as  to 
wag  their  tails  on  his  approach  ;  nor,  indeed,  does  he 
ever,  by  kind  pats  or  well-chosen  civilities,  give  them 
any  cause  to  do  so.  Even  the  obtuse  Tommy  has  learned 
that  he  is  to  be  shown,  not  into  the  drawing-room,  but 
into  the  little  back  litter-room,  which  has  been  arbitrarily 
cleared  of  Sarah's  paint-pots,  and  the  promiscuous  rub- 
bish in  which  her  soul  delights ;  has  been  furnished 
with  pens,  ink,  and  dictionaries,  and  raised  and  dignified 
by  the  name  of  study.  For  Belinda's  fervor  for  learning 
rages  with  a  feverish  heat  that  might  make  a  thoughtful 
looker-on  inclined  to  question  its  solidity  or  its  continu- 
ance. 

She  is  learning  Latin  Syntax  ;  she  is  being  taught 
Greek  ;  she  has  undertaken  a  course  of  Universal  His- 
tory ;  she  devotes  her  spare  moments  to  the  Elements  of 
Algebra.  Very  seldom  now  does  she  join  her  family  in 
the  evening.  Mostly  she  remains  down-stairs,  writing 
Latin  Exercises,  learning  Irregular  Greek  Verbs ;  work- 
ing, working  on  until  late  into  the  night.  She  would 


BELINDA.  161 


like  never  to  stop  ;  to  leave  no  single  chink  or  cranny 
by  which  memory  may  enter. 

And  is  the  charm  working  ?  Is  the  remedy  beginning 
to  make  its  healing  virtue  felt?  This  is  the  question 
that  she  never  dares  ask  herself.  Sometimes,  indeed,  it 
thrusts  itself  upon  her  in  the  sadness  of  the  night.  Some- 
times the  pen  drops  from  her  stiffened  fingers,  or  her 
tired  brain  relaxes  its  hold  upon  the  hard-conned  page, 
and  she  groans  out  to  herself — she  alone  awakes  with 
her  melancholy  gas-jet  burning  above  her  in  the  silence 
of  the  sleeping  house — "  Of  what  use  ?  what  use  ?  "  Has 
it  given  back  to  life  its  sweet  and  wholesome  taste? 
Has  it  helped  her  to  dominate  that  terrible  irritability 
which  makes  no  person  and  no  moment  safe  from  some 
senseless  outbreak  of  her  temper?  Has  it  conquered 
that  gloom  which  renders  her  the  kill- joy  of  her  little 
circle  ?  There  is  not  one  of  these  questions  that  she  can 
honestly  answer  in  the  affirmative. 

But  perhaps  there  has  not  yet  been  time  enough  to 
test  the  efficacy  of  this  cure.  Its  action  will  doubtless  be 
slow,  but  all  the  more  lasting  and  solid  for  that.  She 
must  persevere  ;  it  would  be  madness  not  to  persevere. 
She  passes  her  hand  across  her  weary,  throbbing  temples, 
and  catches  up  the  pen  again. 

The  clocks  strike  two,  and  she  still  writes.  It  is  not 
night  now;  it  is  afternoon.  Mrs.  Churchill  and  Sarah, 
furred  and  feathered,  with  their  bonnets  nicely  tied  on, 
and  their  faces  alight  with  placid  good-humor,  have  set  off 
in  the  brougham  on  their  daily  career  of  calls  and  shops. 

Belinda  remains  behind  in  the  little  dingy  back  room, 
with  her  copy-books.  Not  once  to-day  has  she  tasted 
the  wholesome  outside  air — wholesome  with  all  its  blacks, 
and  fog-charged  as  it  is.  She  has  been  alone  here  the 
whole  day,  except  for  a  couple  of  ten  minutes  grudgingly 
snatched  for  breakfast  and  luncheon. 


162  BELINDA. 


She  has  been  alone,  but  she  is  so  no  longer.  Pro- 
fessor Forth  has  just  been  ushered  in  to  partake  her  soli- 
tude. She  meets  him  with  a  complaint. 

"  I  expected  you  yesterday." 

"  I  was  detained  by  a  college  meeting,  and  by  other 
engagements,"  he  answers.  "I  hope,"  ceremoniously, 
"  that  you  were  not  inconvenienced  by  the  deferring  of 
my  visit  ?  " 

"  I  was,"  she  answered  brusquely.  "  As  it  happened, 
I  wanted  you  badly.  I  was  completely  puzzled  by  a  pas- 
sage here,"  laying  her  hand  upon  a  school  edition  of 
"  Caesar's  Commentaries."  "  I  worried  over  it  till  I  felt 
quite  dazed  and  woolly." 

As  she  speaks  she  draws  the  volume  toward  her,  and 
they  both  stoop  their  heads  over  the  page  :  his  with  its 
old,  sparse,  colorless  hair,  thriftily  drawn  across  the  bald- 
ening crown  ;  hers  with  its  unregarded  riches  of  nut- 
brown.  The  difficulty  dissipated,  she  leans  back  in  her 
chair. 

"  It  is  hopeless  to  make  any  real  progress,"  she  says 
morosely,  "  as  long  as  our  lessons  are  so  interrupted. 
How  much  better  it  would  be  if  we  lived  in  Oxbridge ! 
How  I  wish  we  lived  in  Oxbridge  !  " 

She  is  sitting  alongside  of  him,  and  does  not  look  at 
him  as  she  expresses  this  wish.  It  seems  to  be  addressed 
with  a  general  vagueness  to  the  air. 

He  glances  at  her,  sidelong  and  suspiciously ;  at  the 
beautiful  blooming  profile,  the  discontented  mouth,  the 
fine,  petulant,  small  nose,  the  veiled,  unglad  eyes.  He 
has  almost  given  up  suspecting  her  of  late,  but  her  last 
aspiration  has  rearoused  his  distrust.  Was  not  Sarah 
once  fervent  and  constant  in  her  longings  to  inhabit  a 
University  town  ? 

"  It  would  make  things  so  much  easier,"  she  continues 
plaintively,  quite  unconscious  of  his  disquieting  doubts. 


BELINDA.  163 


"  If  I  were  in  difficulties  I  could  go  straight  to  you.  I 
had  much  rather  live  in  Oxbridge  than  here." 

He  is  still  observing  her  covertly,  and  makes  no  an- 
swer. 

"  It  must  be  a  good  life ! "  she  says,  with  the  same 
restless  longing  as  a  sick  person's  for  strange  food  ;  "  so 
full  of  intelligent  interests,  so  absorbing,  and  must  take 
one  so  out  of  one's  self  !  " 

As  she  speaks  she  clasps  both  hands  at  the  back  of  her 
neck,  and  stares  dreamily  up  at  the  ceiling.  He  has 
moved  his  eyes  away  from  her.  Perhaps  they  are  sat- 
isfied with  the  result  of  their  investigation.  They  now 
look  straight  before  him  on  Caesar's  open  page.  Upon 
his  fingers  he  balances  a  paper-knife,  and  an  unusual  ex- 
pression has  crept  ab<3ut  his  narrow  lips. 

"If  you  are  sincere  in  your  desire  for  a — "  he  begins 
rather  slowly  ;  but  she  breaks  in  upon  him  hotly. 

"  Sincere  !  "  she  repeats,  with  an  angry  intonation  ; 
"  I  can  not  imagine  why  you  preface  all  your  remarks 
with  a  doubt  of  my  sincerity !  What  could  I  possibly 
gain  by  being  insincere  ?  " 

She  looks  at  him  full  and  irately  as  she  speaks,  and 
their  eyes  meet ;  the  dull  old  cautious  eyes,  and  the  un- 
happy flashing  young  ones. 

"  If  my  phrase  offends  you,  I  will  change  it !  "  he 
answers  formally.  "  Since  you  are  sincere  in  your  desire 
for  a—" 

But  again  he  breaks  off.  There  is  a  ring  at  the  door- 
bell. 

"You  have  visitors,"  he  says,  in  an  annoyed  voice. 
"  We  shall  be  interrupted." 

"No,  we  shall  not,"  she  replies,  shaking  her  head. 
"  Tommy  knows  that  when  you  are  here,  I  am  not  at 
home  to  any  one." 

It  is  a  sentence  susceptible  of  a  flattering  interpreta- 


164  BELINDA. 


tion,  that,  indeed,  would  seem  to  bear  no  other,  but  it  is 
uttered  as  such  indifferent  matter-of-fact  that  he  would 
be  indeed  a  coxcomb  who  was  elated  by  it. 

"  Please  go  on,"  smiling  faintly,  "  since  I  am  sincere 
in  my  desire  for — what  ?  " 

But  apparently  he  has  lost  the  thread  of  his  twice- 
begun  speech. 

"Your  servant  must  have  mistaken  your  directions," 
he  says,  with  a  vexed  look  ;  "  he  is  evidently  admitting 
some  one." 

Both  listen,  and  as  she  listens,  Belinda's  color  changes. 

"  If  we  were  at  Dresden,"  she  says  in  a  suppressed 
and  troubled  voice,  "  and  if  I  did  not  hope  that  it  were 
impossible,  I  should  say  that  the  voice  was — " 

The  door  flies  open. 

"  Here  I  am  !  "  cries  Miss  Watson,  bursting  into  the 
room,  in  apparently  the  identical  large  black  and  white 
plaid  gown  and  grizzled  fringe,  and  in  certainly  the  same 
burly  red  face — perhaps  a  shade  worsened  by  the  battle 
and  breeze — as  of  yore. 

She  is  not  ushered  in,  but  helplessly  followed  by  the 
baffled  Tommy,  who  is  raising  his  puny  infant  voice  in 
futile  protestations,  as  his  predecessor  had  so  often  done 
before  him. 

"I  knew  by  Tommy's  manner  that  you  were  at 
home  !  "  cries  she  joyfully.  "  By-the-by,  he  is  a  new 
Tommy  !  What  have  you  done  with  the  old  one  ?  I 
would  not  give  him  my  card  ;  I  said,  '  No,  I  will  surprise 
them  ! ' " 

She  has  succeeded.  Both  Mr.  Forth  and  his  disciple 
have  risen  to  their  feet,  and  now  stand  regarding  their 
visitor  with  a — for  the  first  moments — entirely  silent  dis- 
may. 

"  Mr.  Forth,  too  !  "  cries  Miss  Watson,  snatching  his 
reluctant  hand.  "  Why,  this  is  Dresden  over  again  !  If 


BELINDA.  165 


we  had  but  Sarah  and  Rivers  here,  we  might  think  our- 
selves back  there." 

Neither  of  Belinda's  companions  perceives  it,  but  she 
shudders.  Ever  since  Miss  Watson's  voice  first  fell  on 
her  shocked  ears,  she  has  known  that  she  would  have  to 
endure  the  sound  of  Rivers's  name.  In  reality  not  two 
minutes  have  elapsed  since  then  but  it  seems  to  her  as  if 
for  hours  she  had  been  dreading  it." 

"  How  snug  you  are  !  "  says  the  visitor,  patronizingly, 
looking  round  ;  "  but  why  do  you  sit  here  ?  Why  do  not 
you  sit  in  the  drawing-room  ?  Is  not  the  fire  lit  there  ? 
Oh,  I  suppose  Sarah  sits  there,  and  grandmamma  ?  I  must 
go  and  pay  them  a  little  visit  just  now." 

"They  are  out." 

"  Out ! "  repeats  the  other,  laughing  ;  "  Sarah  is  al- 
ways out.  I  wish  they  would  come  back  !  How  soon  do 
you  expect  them  ?  We  should  be  just  our  Dresden  party 
then — all  but  Rivers  !  " 

Again  that  shudder,  but  she  sets  her  teeth.  She  must 
endure  it — must  steel  herself  to  hear  his  name — to  pro- 
nounce it  if  need  be. 

"  Shocking  thing  about  his  father,  was  it  not  ?  "  con- 
tinues Miss  Watson,  cheerfully  pursuing  the  course  of 
thought  suggested  by  the  mention  of  Rivers.  "  Failed 
for  over  a  million,  and  cut  his  throat.  They  say  that  he 
has  left  his  large  family — twelve  ?  ten  ?  nine  P—how  many 
used  young  Rivers  to  tell  us  there  were  of  them  ? — upon 
the  parish.  But  I  do  not  believe  it ;  one  hears  of  peo- 
ple bankrupt  one  day  and  rolling  in  their  carriages  the 
next." 

Belinda's  heart  is  beating  sickeningly,  and  her  hands 
are  trembling  so  violently  that  she  has  to  clinch  them 
fast  together,  to  hide  their  aguish  shaking ;  but  she  is 
nerving  herself  up.  Here  is  an  opportunity  for  obtaining 
information  about  him  such  as  may  probably  not  recur 


166  BELINDA. 


for  weeks,  months,  possibly  years.  Here,  too,  is  an  occa- 
sion for  practicing  that  indifferent  naming  of  him  to 
which  she  is  resolved  to  attain. 

"  Does  Mr.  Rivers  roll  in  his  carriage  ?  "  she  asks, 
with  a  strained  smile. 

The  effort  to  speak  is  so  great  that  it  seems  to  her  as 
if,  when  it  is  overcome,  she  speaks  unnaturally  loud  ;  but 
as  her  companions  show  no  surprise,  she  concludes  that  it 
can  not  be  so  really. 

"I  do  not  know  about  rolling  in  his  carriage,"  an- 
swers Miss  Watson,  with  her  loud,  ever-ready  laugh  ;  "  I 
know  that  he  can  treat  himself  to  stalls  at  the  theatre, 
which  is  more  than  I  can  ;  I  always  go  to  the  dress  cir- 
cle ;  one's  legs  are  a  little  cramped  in  the  front  row,  but 
one  can  see  as  well  as  in  the  best  place  in  the  house." 

Belinda  has  stooped  over  the  table,  and  is  nervously 
arranging,  rearranging,  disarranging  the  exercise  -  books, 
grammars,  pen-wipers  upon  it. 

"  Did  you  see  him  at  the  play  ! "  she  asks  hurriedly. 

"  I  saw  him  the  other  night  at  the  St.  James's,"  re- 
turns Miss  Watson,  inquisitively  following  with  her  eyes 
Belinda's  unaccountable  fidgetings.  "  What  are  you  look- 
ing for?  Have  you  lost  anything?  No? — at  the  St. 
James's.  'The  Squire' — have  you  seen  it  !  it  is  so  well 
put  on  the  stage — Mrs.  Kendal  quite  at  her  best !  " 

"  I — I  think  not,"  answers  Belinda  incoherently.  "  I 
mean  no  ;  I — I  have  not  seen  it.  You  were  saying — " 

"  What  was  I  saying  ?  "  (her  eyes  still  fastened  curi- 
ously on  the  girl's  purposeless  movements) — "you  must 
have  lost  something  ! — oh  !  that  I  had  seen  young  Rivers 
at  the  play.  He  was  in  the  stalls  with  a  lady — his  sister, 
we  will  presume — though  she  was  not  at  all  like  him," 
with  a  knowing  look  ;  "  if  she  was  on  the  parish,  it  man- 
aged to  dress  her  uncommonly  well ! " 

Even  Belinda's  lips  have  turned  white.     She  is  con- 


BELINDA.  167 


scious  of  it,  and  rubs  them  hard  with  her  fingers.  He  is 
in  London  !  He  can  go  to  the  play,  can  take  his  pleasure 
with  other  women  !  She  has  long  known  in  theory  that 
he  must  have  been  frequently  in  London  during  the  past 
eighteen  months  ;  but  never  before  has  it  come  home  to 
her  with  such  cruel  practical  certitude.  Lightning- quick 
the  contrast  between  their  evenings — his  and  hers — has 
sprung  before  her  eyes  :  her  melancholy  vigils,  devoted 
to  distasteful  studies  in  the  vain  hope  of  wrenching  her 
thoughts  away  from  him ;  and  his,  reclining  in  mirthful 
ease  in  a  comfortable  fauteuil  in  the  lit  theatre,  beside  a 
beautiful,  strange,  fond  woman.  The  beauty  and  the 
fondness  her  sick  imagination  has  at  once  supplied.  That 
she  may  possibly  have  been  his  sister,  her  bitter  soul  re- 
fuses for  one  instant  to  admit. 

"  I  tried  to  get  to  him  as  we  were  going  out,"  pursues 
Miss  Watson  narratively.  "I  saw  him  on  ahead  with 
his  lady  ;  he  is  a  most  attentive  brother!"  with  a  laugh- 
ing accent  on  the  word ;  "  he  was  wrapping  her  up  like 
a  mummy  !  but  though  I  made  a  great  push  for  it  I  could 
not  come  up  with  him  ;  there  was  such  a  crowd.  I  never 
saw  a  fuller  house  ;  I  called  out  to  him,  and  once  I 
thought  he  had  heard,  for  he  looked  round  and  caught 
my  eye  ;  but  it  could  not  have  been  so,  for  he  posted  on 
faster  than  before  !  " 

At  this  in  happier  moments  Belinda  would  have  smiled. 
She  can  not  smile  now. 

"Have  you  not  seen  anything  of  him?"  asks  the 
other,  exploring  the  girl's  wan  face  with  the  unflinching 
inquisitiveness  of  her  eyes  ;  "  has  not  he  been  to  call — 
not  once?  I  must  tell  him  that  there  is  a  hole  in  his 
manners  ;  I  shall  be  sure  to  fall  in  with  him  again  before 
long,  and  I  will  send  him  here.  I  will  tell  him  that  you 
expect  him." 

"  You  will  not,"  says  Belinda  hoarsely,  stretching  out 


168  BELINDA. 


her  hand  and  turning  livid.  "  I  mean,"  helped  back  to 
self-possession  by  the  expression  of  astonished  and  eager 
curiosity  painted  all  over  her  guest's  broad  face — "  I  mean 
that  I  think  I  had  rather  you  did  not.  If  he  wishes  to 
call,  he — he — knows  our  address." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

IT  is  next  day.  Outside,  snow  is  falling ;  but  it  is 
flabby,  irresolute,  large-flaked  snow,  that  melts  as  it 
reaches  the  slushy  street,  and  makes  it  slushier  still.  Mrs. 
Churchill  is  standing  by  the  window,  eying  the  weather 
with  disgust,  and  Sarah  and  the  dogs  are  seated  higgledy- 
piggledly  on  the  hearth-rug. 

"This  is  what  we  are  to  expect  for  the  next  five 
months  ! "  cries  Mrs.  Churchill,  addressing  this  exasper- 
ated remark  partly  to  the  outside  mud  and  mirk,  and 
partly  to  her  granddaughter. 

Neither  heeds  it.  Sarah's  whole  attention,  indeed,  is 
occupied  in  bribing  Punch,  by  a  sweet  biscuit  brought 
up  from  luncheon,  to  the  performance  of  the  most  strik- 
ing in  his  repertoire  of  tricks,  an  affecting  representation 
of  death  ;  which,  when  contrasted  with  his  usual  super- 
abundant life,  is  much  admired  by  strangers,  and  indeed 
by  his  own  family. 

It  is,  however,  the  one  of  his  accomplishments  for 
which  he  himself  has  the  least  partiality.  The  command 
to  die  has  to  be  reiterated  many  times  before  he  at  length 
rolls  reluctantly  over  on  his  side  ;  and  even  then,  as  he 
looks  up  every  half  a  second  and  jumps  up  every  second, 
a  good  deal  of  the  repose  of  death  has  to  be  supplied  by 
the  spectator's  imagination. 

"  What  a  climate  !  "  pursues  Mrs.  Churchill,  in  angry 


BELINDA.  169 


ejaculation.  "  Good  heavens,  Sarah,  why  do  you  let 
Jane  make  such  a  dreadful  noise  ?  " 

She  may  well  ask.  Jane,  seated  on  her  haunches,  is 
volunteering,  in  a  loud  series  of  forward  barks,  to  die, 
to  beg,  to  trust,  to  dance — to  do  anything  of  which  she 
is  utterly  incapable,  in  order  to  divert  to  herself  the  at- 
tention monopolized  by  Punch. 

Slutty,  with  her  usual  poor-spiritedness,  has  crawled 
away  under  a  chair  in  sulky  annoyance  at  her  brother's 
social  success. 

"  How  any  one  that  can  help  it  spends  the  winter  in 
England,  is  more  than  I  can  imagine ! "  pursues  the  old 
lady,  shivering  back  to  the  fire.  "  If  we  were  rid  of  Be- 
linda, we  would  go  abroad." 

"  Why  should  not  Belinda  go  too — No,"  holding  up  a 
finger  in  severe  prohibition  of  Punch's  premature  resur- 
rection ;  "  dead  !  dead  !  head  down  !  dead  ! " 

"  I  could  not  possibly  afford  it ;  and  besides,"  with  a 
shrug,  "  she  would  spoil  the  whole  thing ;  she  is  such  a 
wet  blanket." 

"Everybody  can  not  be  always  on  the  grin  like  you 
and  me,"  answers  Sarah,  with  surly  disrespect. 

"We  would  go  to  the  South,"  says  Mrs.  Churchill, 
perfectly  unmoved  by  her  granddaughter's  want  of  rev- 
erence, to  which,  indeed,  she  is  thoroughly  accustomed, 
her  bright  old  eye  lightening  at  the  notion  of  a  holiday  ; 
"we  would  have  a  week  in  Paris,  and  go  to  the  play 
every  night.  I  must  see  Judic  in  this  new  piece.  We 
would  run  over  to  Monaco  and  try  our  luck.  If  only," 
her  exhilarated  tone  changing  to  one  of  impatient  vexa- 
tion, "  if  only  Belinda  were  out  of  the  way  ! " 

Mrs.  Churchill  is  far  too  much  of  an  old  gentlewoman 

to  speak  loud,  but  her  utterance  is  distinct  and  pure  ; 

she  does  not  swallow  all  the  tails  of  her  words,  as  we 

English  are  accused  of  doing.     It  would  be  impossible 

8 


170  BELINDA. 


for  any  one  entering  the  room  not  to  hear  her  ;  more 
particularly  as  Jane  has  at  length  been  persuaded  to  cease 
favoring  the  company  with  her  remarks. 

Sarah  lifts  her  head.  She  had  an  impression  as  of 
the  door  softly  closing.  In  a  moment  a  sudden  thought 
has  made  her  hustle  aside  the  dogs,  spring  up,  and  fly 
out  on  the  landing.  She  was  right.  Sure  enough,  Be- 
linda is  slowly  descending  the  stairs,  with  her  back  to  her 
sister.  Even  before  she  turns  her  face,  which  in  obedi- 
ence to  her  junior's  call  she  does,  Sarah  knows  somehow 
by  the  look  of  her  back  that  she  has  heard.  She  is  in 
walking  -  dress,  and  is  evidently  making  for  the  hall- 
door. 

"  Are  you  going  out  ? "  asks  Sarah,  with  as  guilty  a 
face  and  voice  as  if  she  herself,  and  not  her  grandmother, 
had  been  the  author  of  the  ill-natured  remarks  so  unfor- 
tunately overheard. 

"Yes." 

"To-day?"  shivering. 

"Yes." 

"Alone?" 

"Yes." 

"Walking?" 

"No." 

"  In  a  hansom  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Where  are  you  going  ? "  cries  Sarah,  with  uncom- 
fortable curiosity  following  her  sister,  who  has  already 
resumed  her  downward  progress. 

"I  am  going  to  the  National  Gallery  to  meet  Mr. 
Forth." 

"To  the  National  Gallery?  why  can  not  he  come 
here?" 

"  Because,  unfortunately,  there  is  hardly  so  fine  a  col- 
lection of  pictures  here  as  there,"  replies  Belinda  disa- 


BELINDA.  171 


greeably  ;  "  he  wishes  to  show  me  a  particular  picture  of 
the  early  Italian  school." 

A  cold  apprehension  steals  over  Sarah. 

"  Do  not  go  ! "  she  cries  impulsively,  catching  her 
sister's  hands  ;  "I  am  sure  his  picture  is  as  little  worth 
seeing  as  himself.  Let  him  wait.  Come  back  to  the 
fire." 

But  Belinda  resolutely  draws  her  hands  away  and 
opens  the  street  door. 

"  I  am  glad  to  be — for  at  all  events  a  couple  of  hours 
— '  out  of  the  way,'  "  she  says  icily. 

As  Sarah,  discomfited,  climbs  the  stairs  again,  she 
winks  away  something  very  like  a  small  tear  from  her 
jovial  blue  eye. 

The  light  is  dull.  The  short  afternoon  already  shows 
signs  of  waning.  In  the  National  Gallery,  strolling 
about  its  handsome,  all  but  empty  rooms,  is  the  usual 
sprinkling  of  odds  and  ends  that  represents  the  daily 
quota  of  art-lovers  supplied  by  London  from  its  four 
millions  :  two  or  three  mal-peign&  artisans ;  three  or 
four  ill-dressed  women ;  a  child  or  two.  No  better 
meeting-place  could  be  found  for  any  two  people  who 
wish  to  converse  undisturbed,  but  have  no  reason  to 
avoid  their  fellow-creatures'  eyes.  Under  this  head 
come  the  two  persons  who  have  so  long  been  standing 
before  a  well-known  Hobbema  (the  Giotto,  which  was 
the  ostensible  cause  of  their  meeting,  has  been  already 
inspected).  A  passer-by  might  presume  that  they  were 
exhaustively  criticising  each  individual  beauty,  but  in 
point  of  fact  one  does  not  see  the  picture  at  all,  and  the 
other  thinks  that  she  does  not.  In  after-days,  however, 
she  finds  that  she  must  have  done,  so  plainly  comes  out, 
printed  on  her  mind,  the  impress  of  that  long,  long,  long 
straight  road  going  away,  away ;  of  those  great,  tall, 


172  BELINDA. 


wayside  poplars,  with  their  perspective  of  lengthy  stems, 
their  high,  scant  heads  raised  loftily  into  the  pale  sky — 
such  slight,  gray-green  heads,  each  one  with  a  different 
character  about  it ;  of  the  man  walking  along  the  road 
to  the  distant  red-roofed  Dutch  village.  It  has  seemed 
to  Belinda  as  if  that  man  must  reach  the  village  before- 
the  Professor  has  finished  his  slow  speech  ;  but  he  is  not 
yet  there,  and  the  Professor  has  ended.  For  he  has 
spoken,  and  not  Greek.  And  now  Belinda  is  speaking. 
Her  eyes  are  fixed  still  with  a  sort  of  glassiness  on  the 
cool  and  tranquil  canvas  of  the  long-dead  master ;  and 
the  poplars  seem  almost  to  sway  to  her  breath.  Her 
voice  is  steady  and  quiet,  though  hard. 

"  I  am  very  glad  of  what  you  say  as  to  personal  affec- 
tion having  no  part  in  your  motives  for  asking  me  to 
marry  you  ;  you  do  not  want — love,"  she  makes  a  hardly 
perceptible  pause  before  pronouncing  the  word,  "  and  I 
have  none  to  give  ;  so  at  all  events  we  start  fair." 

He  makes  a  sort  of  gesture  of  assent. 

"  I  distrust,  and  have  cause  for  distrusting,  professions 
of  affection,"  he  answers  dryly. 

A  certain  flavor  of  rancor  in  his  tone  tells  his  hearer 
that  he  is  thinking  of  her  sister,  and  a  trivial  passing 
wonder  crosses  her  mind  as  to  how  far  Sarah  had  carried 
her  nefarious  simulation  of  an  unlikely  passion.  Never 
has  it  seemed  so  unlikely  as  at  this  moment. 

"  All  that  I  ask,  all  that  I  wish  to  obtain,  is  an  intelli- 
gent, sympathetic  companion." 

"  Sympathetic!"  she  repeats  reflectively  ;  "I  am  not 
sympathetic  ;  I  should  be  deceiving  you  if  I  were  to  let 
you  suppose  that  I  am  :  no  !  let  us  be  sure  that  we  under- 
stand each  other  ;  I  have  as  little  sympathy  to  give  as  I 
have — love  ! " 

Again  that  slight  hesitation. 

"  Possibly  ! "  he  answers,  with  a  stiff  impatience,  look- 


BELINDA.  173 


ing  rather  annoyed  at  her  opposition ;  "  on  my  side,  I 
think  it  right  to  tell  you  of  what  you  may  perhaps  be 
already  aware,  that  the  press  of  my  occupations  and  the 
condition  of  my  health  forhid  my  indulging  in  many 
amusements  enjoyed  by  other  persons,  but  from  which  I 
shall  be  compelled  to  require  you,  as  well  as  myself,  to 
abstain." 

"  I  do  not  want  amusements  ! "  replies  Belinda  gloom- 
ily ;  "  amusements  do  not  amuse  me.  I  want  occupation  ; 
can  you  give  me  plenty  of  that  ?  " 

His  face  unbends  with  a  slight  smile. 

"  I  think  I  can  promise  you  that,  in  the  life  you  will  share 
with  me,  you  will  find  no  lack  of  that.  My  mother — " 

"  Your  mother  !  "  repeats  Belinda  brusquely  ;  "  she  is 
still  alive  then  ?  " 

"  She  is  still  spared  to  me,"  replies  he  piously  ;  but  a 
tone  in  his  voice,  striking  upon  her  fine  ear,  tells  her  that 
he  would  not  have  quarreled  with  the  will  of  Heaven, 
had  he  not  been  so  successful  in  keeping  awhile  "  one  par- 
ent from  the  skies." 

"  She  must  be  very  old,"  says  Belinda  thoughtfully, 
not  reflecting  on  the  unflattering  inference  to  be  drawn 
from  this  remark. 

He  assents  :  "  She  is  somewhat  advanced  in  years." 

Belinda  is  silent  for  a  moment  or  two.  Her  eyes  are 
still  vacantly  fastened  on  the  Hobbema  ;  and  a  vague, 
absent  wish  to  be  walking  with  that  man  along  that  quiet 
road  to  that  red  village  is  playing  about  the  surface  of 
her  preoccupied  mind. 

"  Is  she — "  she  begins,  and  then  breaks  off. 

Across  her  memory  have  darted  various  facts  commu- 
nicated by  Sarah  about  her  future  mother-in-law — facts 
of  a  not  altogether  satisfactory  complexion  ;  something 
about  her  being  out  of  her  mind,  and  never  ceasing  ask- 
ing questions. 


174  BELINDA. 


"  Is  she — "  It  is  so  difficult  to  word  it  civilly  ;  "  dot- 
ing," "  imbecile,"  "  off  her  head  " — she  tries  them  all,  but 
none  sounds  polite  enough.  "  Is  she  "  (she  has  it  at  last) 
"in  full  possession  of  her  faculties  !  " 

He  hesitates  a  moment. 

"  She  is  somewhat  deaf." 

"  Is  her  sight  good  ?  " 

"  I  regret  to  say  that  it  is  almost  gone." 

"But  she  keeps  her  faculties?  her  mind?"  pursues 
Belinda  persistently. 

"  Her  intellect  is  not  what  it  was  ! "  he  answers,  so 
shortly  that  Belinda  feels  that  it  is  impossible  to  pursue 
her  catechism  further. 

And,  indeed,  why  should  she  ?  Has  not  the  tone  of 
his  answers  sufficiently  proved  to  her  that,  for  once  in  her 
life,  Sarah  had  spoken  unvarnished  truth  ? 

"  My  mother's  bodily  health  is  excellent,"  he  contin- 
ues presently  ;  "  I  only  wish  that  my  own  constitution 
were  half  as  vigorous  as  hers  ;  but  her  infirmities  are 
such  as  to  need  a  great  deal  of  loving  care ;  more," 
with  a  sigh,  "than  I  am  able  to  spare  from  my  own 
avocations ! " 

Belinda  is  silent,  drawing  the  obvious  but  not  particu- 
larly welcome  inference  that  the  loving  care  is  henceforth 
to  be  given  by  her. 

"I  am  not  naturally  fond  of  old  people,"  she  says 
slowly.  "I  have  been  very  little  thrown  with  them  ; 
the  only  old  person  whom  I  know  intimately,  granny,  is 
a  great  deal  younger  in  herself  than  I  am.  I  will  be  as 
kind  as  I  can  to  your  mother,  but  that  is  not  the  sort  of 
occupation  I  meant  ;  I  meant,"  turning  her  restless  large 
look  away  from  the  restful  picture  to  his  face,  at  which 
she  has  hitherto  hardly  glanced — "I  meant  something 
that  would  fill  the  mind — some  hard  study  !  " 

"  There  is  nothing,  that  I  am  aware  of,  to  prevent  your 


BELINDA.  175 


pursuing  any  line  of  study  you  may  choose  to  select,"  he 
answers  rather  pettishly. 

"  And  you  think  that  the  taste — the  zest  for  it  will 
certainly  come — certainly  f  "  pursues  she  eagerly.  "  Did 
you  ever  know  a  case  of  its  failing  ?  I  must  not  deceive 
you  ;  it  has  not  come  to  me  yet ;  I  take  no  pleasure  in 
learning ;  I  think  that  I  have  as  little  real  aptitude  for 
study  as  "  (Sarah,  she  is  going  to  say,  but  stops  in  time) 
— "  as  the  veriest  dunce.  But  you  think  that  I  shall  suc- 
ceed if  I  persevere,  do  not  you  ?  "  (plying  him  both  with 
her  feverish  questions,  and  with  the  plaintive  importunity 
of  her  eyes)  :  "  that  perseverance  must  bring  success  to 
any  one,  however  moderately  bright  ?  I  know,  of  course  " 
— humbly — "  that  I  am  not  more  than  very  moderately 
bright." 

"  You  have  a  good  average  intelligence,"  he  answers 
dryly;  "it  would  be  flattery  to  imply  that  you  have 
more  ! " 

"  Of  course,  of  course  !  "  she  rejoins,  meekly  acquies- 
cing in  this  lover-like  expression  of  partiality ;  and  then 
there  is  silence  again. 

It  is  broken  by  Professor  Forth.  It  would  not  have 
been  broken  by  Belinda.  She  is  dreamily  walking  again 
along  Hobbema's  straight  Dutch  road.  Would  the  vil- 
lage be  at  all  like  Wesenstein  when  you  reached  it  ? 

"  I  suppose,"  he  says  ceremoniously,  "  that  there  will 

be  no  objection  to  my  calling  to-morrow  morning  in 

Street,  to  announce  to  your  grandmother  the  step  that  we 
propose  taking  ;  I  am,  of  course,  not  aware  whether  or 
no  she  will  be  likely  to  oppose  it." 

"  Not  she  ! "  answers  Belinda,  leaping  back  from 
dreamland,  and  breaking  into  a  hard  laugh  ;  "  she  will  be 
delighted  to  be  rid  of  me." 

"And — and  your  sister?"  says  he,  with  that  same 
slight  resentful  difficulty  which  he  always  finds  in  men- 


176  BELINDA. 


tioning  Sarah  ;  "  will  she,  too,  be  delighted  to  be  rid  of 
you?" 

"No — o,  I  think  not!"  answers  Belinda  slowly. 
"  She  would  be  perfectly  justified  if  she  were,  for  I  have 
done  my  best  of  late  to  embitter  her  life  ;  but  no,  I  think 
not ;  by-the-by,"  looking  up  and  speaking  with  a  quick 
animation  that  contrasts  with  her  late  sarcastic  indiffer- 
ence, "  I  must  stipulate  that  you  will  allow  her  to  visit 
me.  You  do  not  bear  malice  to  her,"  she  adds  naively, 
"  for — f or  what  happened  formerly  ?  " 

"I  am  not  likely  to  bear  malice,"  he  answers  with 
an  arid  smile,  "for  a  course  of  action  for  which  I  at 
least,  as  it  turns  out,  have  so  much  reason  to  be  thank- 
ful." 

"  That  is  right,"  she  answers  carelessly,  passing  by  his 
stiff politesse ;  "then  I  think  that  is  all.  I  think  there  is 
nothing  more  to  say,  is  there  ?  " 

She  speaks  with  the  same  unemotional  business  air  as  if 
she  were  concluding  the  purchase  of  a  piece  of  land,  or  of 
some  yards  of  cloth.  The  room  is,  at  the  moment,  empty 
of  any  one  but  themselves.  It  is  near  closing-time,  and 
the  sparse  visitors  are  trailing  off.  There  is  nothing  to 
hinder  a  lover-like  parting  embrace  between  the  two  per- 
sons who  have  just  engaged  to  pass  their  lives  together. 
But  the  possibility  of  this  never  once  crosses  Belinda's 
mind,  not  even  when  her  newly-betrothed  steps  a  pace 
nearer  to  her,  and  says,  in  a  voice  through  which  rather 
more  of  human  emotion  than  she  has  ever  before  heard 
in  it  pierces  : 

"  You  must  allow  me  to  repeat  the  expression  of  my 
gratification — of  my  thanks  !  " 

"  What  for  ?  "  she  asks,  piercing  him  with  the  direct 
look  of  her  icy  eyes.  "  It  is  a  mere  matter  of  business 
that  we  have  been  transacting.  You  want  a  secretary, 
housekeeper,  nurse  for  your  mother ;  I  want  a  home  of 


BELINDA.  177 


my  own,  and  a  '  guide,  philosopher,  and  friend,' "  laugh- 
ing harshly.  "  I  see  no  room  for  thanks  on  either  side  !  " 

To  such  a  speech,  what  rejoinder  is  there  to  make  ? 
He  makes  none. 

"  I  may  as  well  go  home  now,"  she  says,  in  the  same 
cool,  matter-of-fact  tone  as  before  ;  "  any  further  arrange- 
ments that  there  are  to  make  may  be  made  when  you 
come  to-morrow.  You  ask  at  what  hour  ?  At  whatever 
hour  best  suits  your  convenience  ;  early  or  late,  it  is  in- 
different to  me  which.  I  must  ask  you  to  call  a  hansom 
for  me." 

As  they  emerge  from  the  building  they  find  that  rain 
is  falling,  a  sleety  rain  to  which  the  undecided  snow  has 
turned.  It  beats  in  her  face  as  she  walks  down  the  steps  ; 
she  does  not  take  the  trouble  to  run  in  order  to  escape 
it ;  she  would  as  soon  be  wet  as  dry.  It  drives  in  upon 
her  even  in  the  hansom  when  she  has  refused  to  allow  the 
glass  to  be  lowered.  One  can  get  very  fairly  well  soaked 
in  a  hansom  if  one  goes  the  right  way  to  work.  And  all 
along  sleety  Pall  Mall,  all  the  sleety  way  home,  she  is 
pestered  with  the  sight,  the  smell,  almost  the  feel,  of  the 
wood  at  Wesenstein  ! 

"Granny,"  says  Belinda,  entering  the  drawing-room, 
walking  straight  up  to  Mrs.  Churchill  and  standing  before 
her,  not  allowing  her  attention  to  be  distracted  even  by 
the  wagging  of  three  kind  tails,  distinctly  addressed  to 
her,  "  you  and  Sarah  may  begin  to  pack  your  boxes  at 
once  ;  you  may  be  off  to  Monaco  as  soon  as  you  please  ;  I 
shall  be  '  out  of  the  way ' !  " 

Mrs.  Churchill  lifts  her  eyes,  in  which  is  none  of  their 
usual  frisky  light,  and  fixes  them  coldly  on  her  tall  young 
granddaughter,  standing  pale  and  severe  before  her.  She 
has  always  thought  Belinda  too  tall ;  it  strikes  her  more 
forcibly  than  ever  now,  as  she  sees  her  towering  majesti- 


178  BELINDA. 


cally  above  her.  Belinda  is  too  everything,  except  amus- 
ing. 

"  Are  you  hinting  at  Waterloo  Bridge,  by  way  of  im- 
proving our  spirits  ?  "  she  asks  sarcastically. 

Mrs.  Churchill  is  not  in  her  playfullest  mood,  by 
which,  almost  as  much  as  by  her  large  lawn  caps,  she  is 
known  to  an  admiring  public.  The  weather ;  the  fact 
that  several  tiresome  and  not  one  pleasant  person  has 
been  to  call ;  the  consciousness  of  guilt  toward  Belinda — 
a  consciousness  not  quite  stifled  indeed,  but  diverted  into 
the  channel  of  anger  by  the  smart,  and  in  fact  unmeas- 
ured rebukes  she  has  had  to  submit  to  from  Sarah — all,  all 
combine  to  rob  her  of  her  usual  suavity.  Sarah's  rebukes, 
indeed,  would  have  led  to  a  quarrel,  could  she  afford  to 
quarrel  with  Sarah,  but  she  can  not.  Upon  her  hangs  too 
much  of  the  ease  and  diversion  of  her  life.  But  there  is 
no  such  motive  to  prevent  her  quarreling  with  Belinda, 
and  she  feels  that  to  do  so  would  be  a  pleasant  relief. 

"  Waterloo  Bridge  ! "  repeats  Belinda,  with  a  mo- 
mentary want  of  comprehension ;  then,  "  Oh,  I  see ! 
No  ;  there  are  other  modes  of  being  out  of  the  way  be- 
sides death." 

"Perhaps  you  mean  to  announce  to  us  your  approach- 
ing marriage,"  suggests  the  old  lady  ironically. 

"You  have  saved  me  the  trouble,"  answers  the  girl 
curtly,  sitting  down  as  she  speaks  and  beginning  to  un- 
fasten her  cloak,  whose  warmth  the  hot  and  scented  room 
begins  to  make  oppressive. 

"  You  are  going  to  be  married  ?  "  cries  the  old  lady, 
jumping  actively  up,  and  running  toward  her  ;  ennui, 
ill-humor,  and  sarcasm  together  racing  away  out  of  her 
voice,  and  making  place  both  in  it  and  in  her  sparkling 
eyes  for  a  delightful  excitement.  "  You  do  not  say  so  ! 
My  dear  child,  you  have  taken  us  by  surprise  !  I  do  not 
know  when  I  have  been  so  pleased  ! " 


BELINDA.  179 


"  Do  not  be  in  too  great  a  hurry  ! "  interrupts  Belinda 
coldly.  "  Before  you  express  any  more  pleasure,  you  had 
better  hear  who  it  is  whom  I  have  promised  to  marry." 

"  I  was  just  going  to  ask,  of  course.  Who  is  it  ?  My 
dear  child,  I  can  not  tell  you  how  intriguee  I  am  to 
know,"  running  swiftly  over  in  her  mind  the  list  of  Be- 
linda's somewhat  shadowy  admirers,  all  of  them  kept  so 
rigorously  at  bay  that  it  would  have  seemed  impossible 
that  any  one  of  them  could  have  approached  within  sight 
of  love-making. 

"  It  is  Professor  Forth  ! " 

Mrs.  Churchill's  jaws  drop  ;  the  dimpling  smiles— she 
still  has  the  remnants  of  an  old  dimple  or  two — vanish 
from  her  cheek.  For  several  moments  she  is  totally  in- 
capable of  speech  ;  and  even  at  the  end  of  them  is  only 
able  to  gasp  out  the  incoherent  words  : 

"  Professor  Forth  !  What  are  you  talking  about  ? 
Nonsense  !  Impossible  ! " 

"If  you  disbelieve  me,"  says  Belinda  quietly,  "you 
had  better  ask  him.  He  is  coming  to-morrow  to  inquire 
whether  you  can  spare  me.  I  told  him  that  I  thought 
you  could." 

"  Professor  Forth  !  "  repeats  Mrs.  Churchill,  gradually 
but  slowly  regaining  the  possession  of  her  senses.  "  I 
can  not  think  what  has  happened  to  the  girls  ;  first  Sarah, 
and  then  you.  You  must  be  bewitched  ! " 

"I  do  not  think  that  he  has  used  any  magic,"  rejoins 
Belinda,  still  with  that  pallid  composure  of  hers.  "  The 
matter  lies  in  a  nut-shell  :  he  wants  a  wife,  and  I  want 
a — "  "  husband "  she  is  going  to  say,  but  something  in 
the  employ  of  the  word  in  such  a  connection  strikes  her 
as  shocking  and  impossible.  She  leaves  her  sentence  for- 
ever unfinished. 

"Well,  'tous  les  goUts  sont  respectables?  I  suppose," 
rejoins  Mrs.  Churchill  with  a  cynical  shrug. 


180  BELINDA. 


"  To  what  are  you  applying  that  lying  pet  maxim  of 
yours,  my  old  friend  ?  "  asks  Sarah  playfully,  coming  sud- 
denly into  the  room,  rubbing  her  little  cold  hands  and 
approaching  her  grandmother  with  a  conciliatory  air. 

She  feels  a  vague  relief  in  seeing  that  Belinda  is  at 
home  again.  Neither  answers  ;  Belinda,  because  she  has 
no  wish  to  rob  her  grandmother  of  the  pleasure  of  com- 
municating her  piece  of  intelligence  ;  Mrs.  Churchill,  be- 
cause a  remnant  of  hurt  dignity  ties  the  tongue  which 
she  is  longing  to  unloose. 

"  To  what  or  whom  are  you  applying  it  ? "  repeats 
Sarah  more  sharply,  glancing  suspiciously  from  one  to 
the  other  as  she  speaks. 

"  To  Belinda,"  replies  the  elder  woman,  unable  any 
longer  to  refrain  herself.  "  I  do  not  know  how  you  will 
like  being  supplanted,  but  she  has  just  been  informing 
me,  as  you  once  before  did,  that  Professor  Forth  is  to  be 
my  grandson." 

"  He  is  not ! "  cries  Sarah  loudly  and  angrily,  turning 
scarlet.  "  Belinda,"  taking  her  sister  by  the  shoulder  and 
rudely  shaking  her,  "  why  do  not  you  speak  ?  why  do  not 
you  contradict  her  ?  why  do  you  allow  her  to  say  such 
things  about  you  ?  It  is  not  true  !  Say  that  it  is  not 
true  ;  it  is  only  a  canard.  You  have  been  saying  it  only 
to  tqase  her  ;  say  that  it  is  not  true  !  " 

"  Why  should  not  it  be  true  ?  "  asks  Belinda,  turning 
her  lovely  cold  face  and  her  gloomy  eyes  up  toward 
Sarah. 

The  latters  hand  drops  nerveless  from  her  sister's 
shoulder,  and  she  steps  back  a  pace  or  two. 

"Then  it  is  true  !  "  she  says,  horrified. 

"  One  would  hardly  imagine  from  your  manner  that 
you  yourself  had  once  been  engaged  to  him,"  returns  Be- 
linda dryly  ;  "  and  yet  I  believe  that  it  was  so." 

"  More  shame  for  me,"  cries  the  other  violently ;  "  but 


BELINDA.  181 


I  will  do  myself  the  justice  to  say  that  I  never  had  the 
most  distant  intention  of  marrying  him." 

"  There  we  differ  then,"  says  Belinda,  slowly  rising, 
and  walking  with  her  cloak  over  her  arm  to  the  door, 
"  for  I  have  every  intention  of  marrying  him  ;  and  so, 
granny,"  turning  as  she  reaches  it  and  calmly  facing  them 
both,  "  as  I  began  by  saying,  you  may  pack  your  trunks 
for  Monaco  as  soon  as  you  please." 

"  How  tiresomely  she  harps  upon  that  string  !  "  cries 
Mrs.  Churchill  peevishly ;  the  more  peevishly  for  the 
pricks  that  her  conscience,  albeit  a  tough  one,  is  giving 
her. 

"  It  is  all  your  doing,"  says  Sarah  morosely,  viciously 
rattling  the  fire-irons  and  boxing  the  dogs'  ears  ;  "  you 
have  driven  her  to  it  ;  sooner  or  later  I  knew  that  you 
would ! " 

"Pooh  !  "  replies  the  other  crossly  ;  "she  is  not  so 
easily  driven  or  led  either.  If  it  were  for  her  happiness," 
with  a  little  pious  parental  air,  "I  can  not  say  that  I 
should  much  regret  her  marriage  ;  and  if  it  does  really 
come  off — it  is  a  shocking  thing,  of  course,  such  an  amant 
pour  rire,  but  she  seems  bent  upon  it ;  and  if  it  does 
really  come  off,"  the  natural  frisky  light  reilluming  her 
eyes,  "  why  then,  my  dear  child,  there  is  in  point  of  fact 
nothing  to  keep  us  from  the  South  !  " 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  morrow  has  come.  Mrs.  Churchill  has  risen  re- 
freshed and  healthful  from  pleasing  dreams  of  sunshine 
and  lansquenet.  Sarah  has  tossed  between  vexed  visions 
and  unwonted  wakefulness.  And  Belinda?  Belinda 
makes  no  complaint  of  her  night.  She  looks  older  than 


182  BELINDA. 


when  she  went  to  bed,  but  the  cold  is  pinching,  and  for 
the  last  year  and  a  half  she  has  been  perceptibly  ageing. 
The  morrow  has  come,  and  the  Professor.  To-day  he  is 
not  ushered  into  the  little  dark  back-room,  but  is  led  by 
a  full-buttoned,  pompous  Tommy  into  the  drawing-room, 
where  his  grandmother- elect  sits  ready  and  alone  to  re- 
ceive him. 

•  Perhaps  they  have  not  a  great  deal  to  say  to  each 
other.  At  all  events  the  interval  is  short  before  the  bell 
is  rung  and  a  message  given  to  request  Miss  Churchill  to 
come  down.  She  is  sitting  in  her  little  chilly  bedroom, 
her  cheek  pressed  against  the  window-pane,  and  her  eyes 
idly  following  the  dirty  sparrows  on  the  leads. 

Without  a  moment's  lingering,  she  obeys.  As  she  en- 
ters the  room  her  betrothed  advances  to  meet  her. 

"  I  am  happy  to  be  able  to  inform  you,"  he  says  in  his 
stiff  Donnish  voice,  "that  your  grandmother  is  good 
enough  to  say  that  she  has  no  obstacle  to  oppose  to  our 
union." 

"  I  told  you  that  she  would  not,"  replies  Belinda 
calmly  ;  "  I  knew  that  she  could  spare  me." 

The  words  are  simple  and  simply  spoken,  with  no  spe- 
cial stress  or  significant  accent  laid  upon  them  ;  and  yet 
under  them  the  old  lady  winces. 

"  It  is  no  case  of  ( sparing,'  "  she  says  sharply  ;  "  of 
course  it  is  a  break-up  to  our  little  circle  ;  but  I  have  no 
right  to  allow  personal  feeling  to  influence  me.  You  are 
old  enough  to  decide  for  yourself  ;  you  are  of  age  ;  you 
came  of  age  six  months  ago.  In  a  case  of  this  kind  a 
third  person  has  no  business  to  interfere  ;  and  of  course 
if  you  are  sincerely  fond  of  each  other — " 

Belinda  shivers. 

"Fond  !  it  is  no  question  of  fondness /"  she  says, 
breathing  quick  and  short,  and  in  a  concentrated  low 
voice  ;  "  you  entirely  misapprehend.  I  thought  that  Mr. 


BELINDA.  183 


Forth  had  explained  to  you  ;  it  is  a  mariage  de  raison  ; 
we  marry  one  another  because  we  can  be  useful  to  each 
other.  Is  it  not  so  ?  "  appealing  to  him  with  abrupt  and 
uncompromising  directness. 

"  Mrs.  Churchill  must  be  as  well  aware  as  yourself," 
he  replies  pettishly,  "  that  I  have  no  reason  to  wish  for 
exaggerated  professions  of  affection." 

"  Well,  I  will  leave  you  to  settle  it  between  your- 
selves," cries  Mrs.  Churchill  rather  hastily,  gathering  up 
her  work  and  making  for  the  door  ;  eluding,  as  she  has 
made  a  golden  rule  of  doing  through  life,  any  scene  that 
threatened  to  be  disagreeable.  "  You  will  stay  to  lunch- 
eon, of  course,  Mr.  Forth  ?  " 

Nodding  and  smiling,  she  withdraws  ;  and  the  dogs, 
with  their  usual  fine  tact,  follow  her — all  but  Jane.  As 
soon  as  she  is  gone  : 

"  I  hope,"  says  Belinda,  fixing  her  joyless,  unbashful 
eyes  full  upon  him — eyes  with  enough  coldness  in  them 
to  freeze  a  volcano — "  that  there  is  no  misapprehension, 
that  you  understand  our  relative  positions  as  I  do." 

"  I  believe  that  there  is  no  necessity  to  go  over  the 
same  ground  again  ! "  he  answers  snappishly. 

His  snappishness  does  not  infect  her. 

"  It  is  better  to  go  over  it  now  while  it  is  yet  time, 
than  afterward,  when  it  would  be  too  late,"  she  answers 
earnestly. 

He  has  drawn  near  his  usual  magnet,  the  fire,  and  is 
chafing  his  bloodless  hands  over  it.  Perhaps  this  is  the 
reason  why  he  expresses  neither  assent  nor  dissent. 

"  I  want  to  make  it  quite  clear  to  you,"  she  says,  still 
in  that  same  deeply  earnest  voice,  "  so  that  you  may  not 
have  cause  to  reproach  me  afterward,  or  think  that  I  have 
dealt  unjustly  with  you  :  I  have  not  one  grain  of  love  to 
give  you,  nor  ever  shall  have  ! "  letting  fall  each  slow 
word  with  a  weight  of  heavy  emphasis.  "  Many  men — 


184:  BELINDA. 


most  men — would  refuse  a  woman  upon  such  terms.  It 
is  open  to  you  still  to  refuse  me." 

The  person  she  is  addressing  moves  uneasily  in  his 
chair. 

"  I  imagined,"  he  says  fretfully,  "  that  we  had  treated 
this  subject  exhaustively  yesterday." 

"  We  can  not  treat  it  too  exhaustively,"  she  answers 
persistently  ;  "  though  I  can  not  love  you — happily  for 
you,  you  have  no  wish  that  I  should — I  will  do  my  best 
by  you  ;  I  will  be  as  useful  to  you  as  I  can.  From  what 
I  gather  of  your  circumstances  I  imagine  that  I  can  be 
very  useful  to  you.  You  are  not  young  ;  you  have  not 
good  health  ;  you  are  lonely." 

A  certain  sound  of  fidgeting  from  the  chair  so  chillily 
drawn  close  to  the  hearth  betrays  that  there  is  something 
in  this  catalogue  of  his  infirmities  not  altogether  agree- 
able to  its  occupant. 

"I  am  lonely  too,  in  my  way,"  continues  Belinda, 
with  an  unconscious  accent  of  self-pity  ;  "  we  can  help 
each  other  ;  you  will  teach  me,"  appealing  to  him  with 
that  hopeless,  cold  gentleness  of  hers.  "  I  shall  be  a  dull 
scholar,  and  never  do  you  credit ;  but  you  will  teach  me  : 
we  will  do  our  best  by  each  other." 

As  she  finishes  speaking  she  draws  nearer  to  him,  and 
holds  out  her  young  soft  hand,  as  if  to  seal  with  it  this 
frosty  bargain.  He  takes  it  formally,  but  does  not  press 
it  any  more  than  he  had  pressed  her  grandmother's.  Per- 
haps he  has  no  inclination.  Perhaps  he  dares  not. 

Belinda  sits  down  opposite  to  him  ;  the  light  from 
the  window,  such  as  it  is,  falling  full  on  her  face  ;  her 
hands  folded  in  her  lap,  and  her  eyes  looking  straight  be- 
fore her.  There  is  something  so  odd  and  strained  in  her 
attitude  that  Jane,  well-meaning  but  injudicious,  goes  up 
to  her  and  rubs  her  long  nose  and  her  pink-rimmed  eyes 
against  her  knees  to  cheer  her. 


BELINDA.  185 


"Had  your  grandmother  been  able  to  spare  me  a  few 
more  minutes,"  says  Mr.  Forth,  in  a  key  in  which  a  slight 
tinge  of  umbrage  is  perceptible,  "  I  could  have  wished  to 
enter  with  her  into  some  details,  upon  which,  as  things 
now  are,  I  have  been  unable  to  touch  ;  with  regard  to  the 
date,  for  instance,  I  should  be  unwilling  to  hurry  you 
unduly,  but — " 

During  the  whole  of  his  last  sentence  she  has  felt  him 
watching  her  narrowly.  Is  this  the  touchstone  that  he  is 
applying  to  her  sincerity  ?  Does  he  expect  her  to  turn 
as  dishonestly  restive  as  Sarah  had  obviously  done  when- 
ever any  suggestion  of  a  like  nature  had  been  made  to 
her  ?  The  idea  crosses  her  mind  with  a  sort  of  thin,  fugi- 
tive amusement. 

"  You  need  not  consult  granny,"  she  answers  coldly  ; 
"  You  had  better  arrange  it  so  as  best  to  suit  your  own 
convenience." 

There  is  such  an  evident  good  faith,  such  an  entire 
absence  of  all  desire  of  evasion  in  her  look  and  tone,  that 
his  scrutiny  relaxes. 

"  It  is  all  one  to  me,"  she  says  ;  "  there  is  nothing  to 
wait  for." 

In  her  tone  is  such  a  flat,  tame  hopelessness  that  Jane 
redoubles  her  rubbing  against  her  knees,  and  accompanies 
it  with  an  acute,  short  bark.  If  that  will  not  put  her  in 
spirits,  nothing  will. 

"  I  should,  of  course,"  pursues  Mr.  Forth,  "  be  anx- 
ious to  leave  you  sufficient  time  for  such  preparations  as 
you  may  wish  to  make." 

"  What  preparations  ?  "  she  asks  brusquely  ;  "  I  need 
none.  You  are  past  the  age,  I  suppose,  when  marriage 
festivities  would  give  you  much  pleasure ;  and  they 
would  be  entirely  out  of  place  here." 

"It  is,  however,  usual,  I  believe,"  he  answers,  in 
an  annoyed  tone,  "  to  make  some  slight  sacrifices 


186  BELINDA. 


to  conventionality  on  an  occasion  of  this  kind  ;  it  is 
usual — " 

"  It  is  usual  to  love  one  another  !  "  breaks  in  she  with 
a  bitter  laugh.  "What  is  usual  with  others  does  not 
apply  to  us  ;  you  need  not  take  my  preparations  into  your 
calculations." 

He  is  silent,  but  his  face  expresses  vexation. 

"  It  had  better  be  soon,"  continues  Belinda  coolly  ; 
"  I  shall  be  in  the  way  here  if  it  is  not.  They  want  to  be 
rid  of  me  ;  they  want  to  go  to  the  south  of  France ;  it 
had  better  be  soon." 

But  even  now  Professor  Forth  does  not  immediately 
answer.  Perhaps  this  mode  of  treating  the  question  of 
an  approaching  marriage  seems  to  him  even  more  baffling 
than  Sarah's.  At  last : 

"  It  is  extremely  fortunate  for  me,"  he  says  slowly, 
and  without  any  perceptible  exhilaration  of  tone,  "to 
find  you  so  ready  to  meet  my  views." 

"There  is  nothing  to  wait  for,"  repeats  she  flatly. 
It  seems  as  if  in  this  phrase  there  were  a  dismal  charm 
for  her. 

Again  there  is  a  pause,  during  which  Belinda's  eyes 
rest  upon  her  betrothed's  face  with  a  look  of  cold  expect- 
ancy. 

"  Were  I  not  reassured,"  he  begins  at  length,  "  by  the 
indifference  you  express  as  to  the  date,  I  should  hesitate 
to  name  one  so  early  as  the  10th  of  next  month." 

"  Could  not  it  be  sooner  ?  "  asks  Belinda  curtly. 

He  looks  at  her  in  unfeigned  astonishment.  In  this 
family  is  he  to  experience  no  medium  between  disingenu- 
ous procrastination  and  un maidenly  haste  ? 

Belinda  sees  and  interprets  his  look,  but  her  eyes  do 
not  fall ;  her  cheeks  do  not  color  beneath  it. 

"  When  a  thing  has  to  be  done,"  she  says,  with  a  sort 
of  restlessness  for  a  moment  ruffling  her  hitherto  deathly 


BELINDA.  187 


calm,  "  it  is  well  that  it  should  be  done  at  once ;  I  hate 
dawdling  ! " 

"  I  fear,"  he  says,  in  a  perplexed  and  not  particularly 
pleased  voice,  "  that  my  engagements  will  not  allow  of 
my  suggesting  an  earlier  date.  I  had  thought  that  the 
10th  would  have  left  a  clear  fortnight,  before  the  com- 
mencement of  term,  for  whatever  journey — " 

"Journey  I "  she  interrupts  almost  rudely,  breathing 
quick.  "  What  journey  ?  do  you  mean  a  wedding  tour  ?  " 
with  an  accent  of  indescribable  shrinking.  "  Why  should 
we  make  one  at  all  ?  why  should  not  we  go  straight  to 
Oxbridge?" 

"  I  am  sorry,"  he  answers  stiffly,  "  to  disoblige  you  ; 
but,  quite  independently  of  present  arrangements,  I  have 
been  advised  by  my  medical  man  to  try  the  effect  of  a 
more  bracing  air,  as  a  corrective  to  the  extreme  relaxing- 
ness  of  Oxbridge  ! " 

She  is  silent  for  a  moment ;  then  : 

"Of  course,"  she  says  grudgingly,  "if  it  is  a  mat- 
ter of  health,  I  can  say  nothing ;  but,  as  far  as  I  am 
concerned,  I  would  far  rather  go  straight  to  Ox- 
bridge." 

"  He  is  not  going  to  stay  to  luncheon,  then  ? "  cries 
Sarah,  in  an  exhilarated  voice,  running  into  the  drawing- 
room  ;  after  having  been  hanging  perilously  far  over  the 
upper  banisters  unseen,  to  speed  the  parting  guest. 
"  Thank  God  for  that !  there  are  sweet-breads  for  lunch- 
eon, and  I  should  have  been  sorry  to  miss  them,  as  I  cer- 
tainly should,  for  nothing  would  have  induced  me  to  sit 
down  with  him  !  " 

"  I  think  you  will  have  to  get  over  that  little  difficulty 
in  time  ! "  replies  Belinda  dryly. 

She  had  risen  to  bid  her  betrothed  good-by,  and  yet 
stands.  She  is  holding  her  cold  right  hand,  which  still 


188  BELINDA. 


seems  to  feel  the  chill  impress  of  his  frosty  hand-shake,  to 
the  fire. 

"  He  is  gone  for  good,  is  not  he  ? "  continues  Sarah, 
hurrying  up  ;  "  you  have  thought  better  of  it  ?  it  was 
only  a  joke  ?  As  a  joke,  it  was  not  a  bad  one  ;  I  am  not 
sure,"  with  a  glance  of  indignant  admiration  at  her  sister, 
"  that  in  that  point  of  view  it  was  not  an  improvement  even 
upon  mine  in  the  same  line  ;  but  one  may  have  too  much 
of  it.  It  was  a  joke,  was  not  it  ?  "  with  an  eager  stress. 

"On  the  contrary,"  replies  Belinda,  with  as"  icy  a 
composure  as  if  her  lover's  bloodless  eld  were  infectious, 
and  she  had  caught  it,  "  the  day  is  fixed  !  " 

In  her  hasty  entrance  Sarah  had  left  the  door  ajar, 
and  through  it  her  grandmother  now  enters  ;  having  ap- 
parently overheard  the  last  words. 

"  The  day  fixed  !  "  repeats  she,  with  her  eyes  dancing  ; 
"  my  dear  Belinda,  you  take  us  by  storm !  we  are  in  a 
whirl !  But  fixed  for  when  ?  " 

"  For  the  10th  of  next  month,"  replies  Belinda  curtly, 
turning  away  her  dull  face  from  her  beaming  questioner, 
and  speaking  in  a  key,  if  possible,  yet  more  frozen  than 
before. 

"  The  10th  !  "  repeats  Mrs.  Churchill,  in  a  tone  into 
which  she  honestly,  if  not  very  successfully,  tries  to  in- 
fuse a  tinge  of  regret ;  "  that  is  soon !  You  are  in  a 
hurry  to  leave  us  ! " 

"  There  is  nothing  to  wait  for,"  replies  Belinda,  me- 
chanically repeating  her  dreary  formula. 

"  I  can  not  think  how  we  shall  manage  about  your 
clothes  ! "  continues  Mrs.  Churchill,  growing  pink  with 
pleasure,  and  her  old  dimple  reappearing.  "  We  shall  be 
shockingly  hurried  !  we  must  go  about  your  underclothes 
and  lingerie  this  afternoon.  Mary  Smith  in  Sloane  Street 
is  excellent,  is  not  she,  Sarah  ?  but  she  has  already  half  a 
dozen  wedding  orders." 


BELINDA.  189 


"  She  may  be  spared  a  seventh/'  replies  Belinda,  with 
a  bitter  small  smile.  "  I  will  have  no  new  clothes  !  " 

"  That  means,  of  course,  that  you  are  not  in  earnest," 
says  Mrs.  Churchill,  with  a  disappointed  refrigeration  of 
tone  ;  "  that  the  whole  thing  is  a  fiction  ;  you  might  as 
well  have  said  so  at  first ! " 

A  flash  of  hope  has  come  into  Sarah's  sunny  eyes  as 
she  looks  eagerly  at  her  sister  ;  but  at  the  expression  of 
that  sister's  face,  it  at  once  dies  down  again. 

"  Do  not  be  afraid,"  says  Belinda  quietly,  "  it  is  no 
fiction  ;  but  I  will  have  no  new  clothes  :  you  will  have 
the  more  money  to  spend  at  Monaco." 

"  Monaco  !  Monaco  ! "  repeats  Mrs.  Churchill,  hiding 
a  look  of  conscious  guilt  under  a  fretful  air  ;  "  you  have 
Monaco  on  the  brain  ;  it  is  your  idee  fixe  I  but  as  to  your 
clothes — " 

"  As  to  my  clothes — simply  I  will  not  have  any,"  re- 
plies Belinda,  with  a  look  of  imperative  decision. 

"  I  should  have  thought  them  the  one  Goschen  in  your 
desert,"  says  Sarah,  with  an  annoyed  laugh  ;  "  them  and 
the  presents." 

"  Presents  ?  "  echoes  Belinda  impatiently  ;  "  I  will 
have  no  presents  !  " 

"In  short,"  says  Mrs.  Churchill  sarcastically,  "  you  and 
the  Professor  will  crawl  in  a  four-wheeled  cab  to  a  regis- 
try-office at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning." 

"  If  you  substitute  a  church  for  a  registry-office,  you 
have  exactly  expressed  my  intention." 

There  is  an  aghast  silence.  Sarah  and  Mrs.  Churchill 
look  at  one  another.  Something  in  their  interchange  of 
glances  grates  upon  Belinda. 

"You  will  never  understand,"  she  says,  exchanging 
her  icy  calm  voice  for  one  of  excessive  irritability  ;  such 
irritability  as  of  late  her  family  has  been  too  well  ac- 
quainted with,  "and  it  is  no  use  explaining  to  you.  I 


190  BELINDA. 


am  tired  of  explaining  to  you  that  this  is  not  an  ordinary 
marriage  ;  what  is  there  to  make  a  gala  of,  and  buy  new 
clothes  for,  in  a  mere  matter  of  business  ?  I  tell  you  it 
is  a  mere  matter  of  business  ;  I  keep  dinning  it  into  your 
ears,  but  you  will  not  understand  !  it  is  a  mere  matter  of 
business  I " 

She  repeats  it  over  and  over  again,  as  if  to  reassure 
herself  by  the  strength  and  number  of  her  own  repeti- 
tions, and  looks  round  at  her  two  auditors,  as  if  daring 
them  to  oppose  any  contradiction  to  her  assertion."  Nei- 
ther of  them  does.  It  is,  indeed,  some  moments  before 
either  of  them  finds  anything  to  say.  Then — 

"  Have  you  made  this  quite  clear  to  Professor  Forth  ? 
asks  Mrs.  Churchill  dryly. 

"  Quite  !  "  replies  Belinda  excitedly  —  "  quite  !  I 
made  it  as  clear  as  the  sun  in  heaven  ;  he  quite  under- 
stands ;  he  fully  agrees  with  me  ;  he  is  quite  of  my  way 
of  thinking." 

"He  must  be  a  very  odd  bridegroom,"  says  Mrs. 
Churchill  sarcastically. 

"  It  is  a  marriage  of  the  mind  !  "  replies  Belinda,  still 
more  excitedly,  looking  round  with  angry  suspicion  in 
search  of  the  ridicule  which  she  dimly  feels  may  attach 
to  her  last  utterance.  "  I  do  not  suppose  that  there  is 
anything  very  odd  in  two  people  hoping  to  draw  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  rational  happiness  from  such." 

Mrs.  Churchill  turns  away  to  conceal  an  ungovernable 
smile. 

"  A  marriage  of  the  mind !  "  repeats  Sarah,  with  a  dis- 
gusted accent  ;  "  well,  I  have  heard  of  them  before,  but 
this  is  the  first  time  that  I  ever  had  the  pleasure  of  meet- 
ing one  ;  and  I  humbly  hope  it  may  be  the  last." 


BELINDA.  191 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  winter  advances  ;  Christmas  comes — comes,  as  it 
not  infrequently  now  comes  to  the  world's  greatest  city, 
in  an  almost  total  darkness  ;  a  choking  yellow  darkness. 
The  gas  has  to  be  lit  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
Drearily  it  flares,  from  the  imperceptible  dawn  until  the 
undiscriminated  night.  Under  its  and  the  fog's  pestilent 
breaths  the  flowers  in  the  stands  wither  ;  the  carefully- 
cherished  puny  ferns  shrink  away  into  death.  Through 
the  suffocating  obscurity  the  church-bells  ring  muffled  ;  the 
cabs  crawl  cautiously  at  a  foot's  pace,  and  the  omnibuses 
cease  to  run.  None  of  the  Churchill  family  have  been 
able  to  get  to  church  ;  and  either  by  that  fact  or  by  the 
fog,  their  spirits  and  tempers  are  sensibly  worsened. 

Mrs.  Churchill  likes  to  go  to  church  on  Christmas 
Day  ;  it  is  a  sort  of  fetich,  the  loss  of  which  may  entail 
disadvantage  upon  her,  either  in  this  world  or  in  the 
next. 

"  How  anything  short  of  absolute  necessity  can  keep 
any  one  in  England  during  the  winter  months,  passes  my 
comprehension ! "  cries  she,  taking  up  her  old  cry,  and 
pettishly  clicking  together  the  clasps  of  the  prayer-book 
in  which  she  has  been  reading  the  lessons  for  the  day. 

Sarah,  her  only  companion,  makes  no  reply  ;  not  that 
she  is  absorbed  in  any  occupation,  but  because  the  remark 
appears  to  her  to  be  both  old  and  worthless. 

"  And  I  am  far  from  feeling  sure  that  we  shall  ever 
get  away,  after  all,"  continues  the  elder  woman,  seeing 
that  she  may  wait  in  vain  for  a  sympathetic  response. 
"  I  feel  no  sort  of  confidence  in  Belinda,"  in  an  exasper- 
ated voice  ;  "  she  is  quite  capable  of  throwing  him  over  at 
the  last  moment.  What  do  you  think  ?  do  not  you  hear 
that  I  am  speaking  to  you  ?  do  not  you  think  that  she  is 


192  BELINDA. 


quite  capable  of  throwing  him  over  at  the  last  mo- 
ment?" 

"  It  shall  not  be  for  want  of  asking  if  she  does  not," 
replies  Sarah  surlily. 

"  I  really  do  not  see  that  you  have  any  right  to  put 
pressure  upon  her,"  rejoins  Mrs.  Churchill  crossly  ;  "I 
can  not  see  that  it  is  any  business  of  yours  ;  because  you 
behaved  extremely  ill  to  him,  is  no  reason  why  you  should 
incite  your  sister  to  do  the  same.  In  fairness  to  him,  I 
must  insist  upon  your  not  attempting  to  influence  her  one 
way  or  the  other  !  " 

"  You  may  insist,"  replies  Sarah  undutif ully,  her  soft 
round  face  growing  dogged  and  hard  ;  "  but  as  long  as  I 
have  one  breath  left,  I  shall  spend  it  in  trying  to  hinder 
her  from  such  a  monstrous  suicide." 

"  Suicide  !  "  repeats  Mrs.  Churchill  angrily  ;  "  pooh  ! 
you  may  be  very  thankful  if  you  ever  get  any  one  to 
make  as  good  a  settlement  upon  you  as  he  has  done  upon 
her  !  Suicide  indeed  ! " 

"  Why  do  you  not  marry  him  yourself,  if  you  are  so 
pleased  with  him  ?  "  asks  Sarah  cynically  ;  "  it  seems  all 
one  to  him  which  of  us  he  marries,  so  as  he  gets  one  of 
the  family  ;  it  seems  to  be  the  breed,  not  the  individual, 
that  he  admires.  Marry  him  yourself,  and  carry  him  off 
to  Cannes  ;  I  assure  you  that  I  will  not  move  a  finger  to 
prevent  you  ! " 

"  He  is  a  man  not  without  distinction  in  his  own  line," 
pursues  Mrs.  Churchill,  affecting  not  to  have  heard  her 
granddaughter's  last  ironical  suggestion  ;  "  though  it  hap- 
pens to  be  a  line  which  you  are  quite  incapable  of  appre- 
ciating. He  is  not  handsome,  certainly,  but  there  is  a 
good  deal  of — of,"  hesitating  for  an  encomium — "  of  char- 
acter in  his  face.  He  has  made  an  excellent  settlement 
upon  her  ;  it  quite  took  me  by  surprise.  She  is  twenty- 
one,  and  it  is  her  first  bona-fide  offer  ;  I  think  you  will 


BELINDA.  193 


not  be  acting  at  all  a  friend's  part  in  making  her  quarrel 
with  her  bread-and-butter." 

"  Whether  I  am  acting  the  part  of  a  friend  or  not," 
retorts  Sarah  obstinately,  marching  toward  the  door,  "I 
promise  you  that  I  shall  carry  my  remonstrances  to  the 
altar-foot ;  and  so  would  you  if  you  did  your  duty.  You 
may  like  to  know,"  firing  a  defiant  parting  shot  from 
the  doorway,  "  that  I  am  going  straight  to  her  now  to 
resume  the  subject." 

She  is  as  good  as  her  word.  She  finds  Belinda  where 
she  knew  that  she  would  find  her,  in  her  little  back  sit- 
ting-room, but  not  employed  as  she  had  expected.  She 
had  thought  to  come  upon  her  stooping  over  her  eternal 
copy-books  ;  but  for  once  they  are  laid  aside.  She  is  sit- 
ting on  the  hearth-rug,  the  gas  glaring  above  her  and  cast- 
ing its  ugly  shadows  upon  her  cheeks,  making  them  look 
lined  and  hollow.  Strewed  about  her  is  a  small  litter  of 
old  writing-desks,  old  workboxes,  childish  relics.  On  her 
lap  lies  open  a  morocco  pocket-book,  over  which,  on  Sa- 
rah's entrance,  she  hastily  puts  her  hands,  as  if  to  con- 
ceal it. 

"  I  am  setting  my  house  in  order,"  she  says,  looking 
up  with  a  rather  guilty  smile.  "  Did  you  ever  see  such 
a  squirrel's  nest  ?  Here  is  the  case  of  court-plaster  that 
you  gave  me  on  my  eighth  birthday.  Do  you  remember 
how  fond  we  were  of  giving  each  other  court-plaster  ? 
Here  is  the  lady's  companion  that  granny  brought  me 
from  Bath  ;  I  remember  crying  because  she  brought  you 
such  a  much  better  one.  Even  as  long  ago  as  then," 
looking  pensively  at  the  little  rusty  old  pair  of  scissors 
and  the  dim  bodkin,  "  it  began." 

"  What  were  you  looking  at  when  I  came  in  ?  "  asks 
Sarah  brusquely,  and  dropping  on  her  knees  beside  her 
sister. 

Belinda  starts.  Her  first  impulse  is  to  clasp  her 
9 


194:  BELINDA. 


hands  in  still  closer  guardianship  over  her  hid  treasure  ; 
but  her  next  corrects  it. 

"  You  are  quite  welcome  to  see  them  once  more,  be- 
fore they  go  into  the  fire,"  she  says  quietly,  though  in  the 
yellow  gaslight  her  cheeks  crimson.  "  I  do  not  know 
why  I  should  hide  them  ;  they  are  relics  of  an  affection 
almost  as  warm  and  as  steady  as  granny's.  There ! " 
picking  up  and  holding  scornfully  between  her  finger  and 
thumb  for  Sarah's  inspection  one  withered  flower  after 
another.  "  That  was  once  a  gardenia  ;  that  was  a  Cape 
jasmine  ;  that  was  a  tuberose.  How  pretty  they  look  ! 
how  sweetly  they  smell  now  !  Have  you  looked  enough 
at  them  ?  Off  with  them,  then  !  " 

As  she  speaks,  and  despite  Sarah's  hand  stretched  out 
with  involuntary  eagerness  to  check  her,  she  tosses  the 
little  dry  skeletons  into  the  fire,  where,  with  a  hardly 
perceptible  shrivel  and  crackle,  they  forever  disappear. 

Belinda  watches  them  with  a  hard,  dry  eye. 

"  Are  you  satisfied  ?  "  she  says,  turning  to  her  sister, 
and  exhibiting  the  pocket-book  extended  empty  from 
cover  to  cover.  "  There  is  nothing  else  in  it  except  my 
love-letter;  it  is  humiliating  to  have  but  one,  is  not  it  ? 
Would  you  like  to  read  it  again  before  it  follows  those 
pretty  flowers,  or  may  it  go  at  once  ?  " 

"  Give  it  me  !  "  cries  Sarah,  snatching  the  little  sheet, 
which  looks  older  than  it  really  is  from  obvious  hard 
wear,  continual  unfolding,  blistering  tears.  "  I  will  read 
it  again.  Perhaps  reading  it  in  cold  blood  like  this,  the 
meaning  may  strike  one  differently  ! " 

"  If  you  wish  I  can  spare  you  the  trouble,"  says  Be- 
linda bitterly.  "  I  can  say  it  to  you  if  you  wish." 

The  fire  burns  low  and  dull;  and  Sarah  rises  and 
stands  right  beneath  the  gas,  so  that  no  lack  of  light  may 
hinder  her  examination  of  the  document  in  her  hand. 
But  the  rays  of  a  June  sun  would  be  in  this  case  of  no  use. 


BELINDA.  195 


"  I  can  make  nothing  of  it,"  she  says  dispiritedly,  giv- 
ing it  back  to  its  owner  ;  "  but  do  not — do  not  burn  it ! " 

For  a  moment  Belinda  hesitates,  considering  with 
quivering  eyelids  and  trembling  lip  the  small  and  faded 
paper.  Then  in  a  moment  it  has  followed  the  flowers  ! 

At  first  it  gives  a  curling  writhe,  as  if  it  hurt  it  to  be 
burned  ;  then  one  or  two  sentences  come  out  very  clear 
before  flying  in  black  film  up  the  chimney.  The  one  that 
lasts  longest  and  disappears  latest  is,  "  Oh,  forgive  me  !  " 

After  that  there  is  silence.  Sarah  has  dropped  sulkily 
into  an  arm-chair ;  and  Belinda  has  turned  again  to  her 
childish  treasures,  and  is  beginning  to  sort  and  part  them. 
But  her  hands  move  mechanically  of  their  own  accord, 
aud  with  that  want  of  purpose  which  shows  that  they  are 
not  directed  by  the  brain. 

When  a  quarter  of  an  hour  has  gone  dumbly  by,  Be- 
linda speaks,  in  that  flat  and  spiritless  voice  which  is  now 
habitual  to  her  : 

"  I  wanted  to  ask  your  advice ;  I  want  you  to  give 
me  your  opinion.  Is  it  necessary — am  I  bound  in  honor 
to  tell  Professor  Forth  ?  " 

She  stops  with  a  sudden  sobbing  catch  in  her  breath. 

"  If  you  think  that  your  confidence  will  be  in  the  least 
likely  to  make  him  break  his  engagement,  tell  him  by  all 
means  !  "  replies  Sarah  surlily.  "  Not  only  tell  him  what 
there  is  to  tell,  but  invent  a  great  deal  more  besides.  I 
promise  you  that  I  will  aid  you  with  all  the  powers  of  my 
imagination ! " 

"  Must  I  really  tell  him  ? "  groans  Belinda,  with  an 
accent  of  such  acute  pain  that  Sarah's  heart  smites  her. 

"  Tell  him  !  "  she  cries  compassionately.  "  My  poor 
child,  what  is  there  to  tell  ?  " 

"  What  indeed  !  "  acquiesces  Belinda,  in  bitter  humil- 
ity. But  she  looks  relieved.  "  Even  if  there  were  any- 
thing to  tell,"  she  goes  on  a  moment  later — "  but,  as  you 


196  BELINDA. 


justly  say,  there  is  nothing,  for  one  is  not  answerable  to 
any  one  for  the  freaks  of  one's  own  imagination — but 
even  if  there  were,  he  has  no  concern  with  my  past,  has 
he  ?  It  is  only  from  the  10th  of  next  month  onward 
that  I  am  accountable  to  him  for  my  actions  ! " 

"  The  10th  of  next  month ! "  repeats  Sarah  fiercely. 
"  What,  is  that  still  the  day  on  which  the  gallows  is  to 
be  erected  ?  " 

"  If  you  think  that  by  wording  it  so  offensively,  you 
will  induce  me  to  put  it  off,  you  are  mistaken,"  answers 
Belinda,  with  an  access  of  miserable,  sore  ill-humor ; 
"  and  you  know  the  sooner  I  am  c  out  of  the  way ' — I  am 
always  in  the  way  now — the  sooner  you  can  be  off  to  the 
South  ! " 

"  Save  your  sneers  for  granny,  who  deserves  them," 
answers  Sarah,  genuinely  hurt.  "  I  do  not." 

"  I  know  you  do  not  ! "  cries  the  other  remorsefully  ; 
"  but  you  were  the  nearest  thing  to  me.  It  seems,  nowa- 
days, as  if  I  must  put  my  sting  into  whatever  is  nearest 
to  me  ! " 

"  That  is  the  right  frame  of  mind  in  which  to  be  led 
to  the  gal —  to  the  altar,  is  not  it  ? "  retorts  Sarah  sar- 
castically ;  and  again  they  are  silent. 

"  I  now  wish  to  Heaven,"  resumes  Sarah  devoutly,  at 
the  expiration  of  a  heavy  interval,  "that  I  had  married 
him  myself.  Intensely  as  I  should  have  disliked  it,  he 
could  not  have  made  me  as  unhappy  as  he  will  you.  A 
wine-glass  holds  less  than  a  hogshead  ;  and  the  pious  hope 
of  an  early  widowhood,  which  you  will  be  too  conscien- 
tious to  indulge,  would  have  buoyed  me  up  !  " 

Belinda's  only  answer  is  a  sickly  smile. 

"You  would  have  gone  on  living  with  granny  and 
the  dogs,"  pursues  Sarah,  in  earnest  narrative  ;  "  she 
would  have  grown  civiler  to  you  when  she  found  that 
she  had  no  one  else  to  depend  on,  and  she  really  is  very 


BELINDA.  197 


good  company  when  she  chooses  ;  and  by-and-by,  some 
fine  day,  Rivers  might  have  come  back.  No,  no  !  "  reso- 
lutely catching  and  holding  down  with  her  small,  strong 
wrists  the  hands  that  her  sister  is  hurrying  to  her  tortured 
face.  "  I  do  not  care  whether  you  wince  or  no  !  I  do 
not  care  whether  it  hurts  you  or  no  ;  you  must  and  shall 
hear.  Some  day — Rivers — might — have  come  back  again  I 
He  may  come  back  still ;  but  it  may  be  after  the  10th  of 
January  ! " 

She  pauses  dramatically,  and  fixes  her  eyes  upon  the 
poor  quivering  features,  so  barely  exposed  to  her  piercing 
scrutiny.  There  comes  no  answer  but  a  moaning  sigh. 

"  I  can  give  you  no  reason  for  it,"  continues  Sarah  ; 
"  I  know  no  more  about  him  than  you  do  ;  but  I  have  a 
conviction — something  tells  me,  that  there  has  been  some 
mistake,  some  hitch,  some  unavoidable  delay  !  " 

"  An  unavoidable  delay  of  eighteen  months ! "  says 
Belinda,  with  faltering  irony.  "  How  likely  !  " 

"  A  letter  has  been  lost." 

"  Letters  are  never  lost,"  hopelessly. 

"  Well,  have  it  as  you  like  !  "  cries  Sarah  impatiently. 
"  All  the  same,  my  conviction  remains  that  some  day  he 
will  come  back  again.  How  glad  you  will  be  to  see  him  ! 
How  pleasant  it  will  be  for  you  to  introduce  him  to  your 
husband,  Mr.  Forth  !  " 

By  a  great  wrench,  Belinda  succeeds  in  loosing  one 
hand  ;  but  it  is  a  very  insufficient  shield,  and  she  has 
failed  in  liberating  the  other,  so  sturdily  held  in  Sarah's 
small  but  potent  grasp. 

"  I  see  him  coming  into  the  room  with  those  blazing 
eyes  of  his,"  goes  on  Sarah,  in  a  sort  of  prophetic  frenzy 
— "  they  were  not  much  like  Mr.  Forth's  eyes,  were  they  ? 
— and  you  introducing  them  to  each  other  :  '  My  hus- 
band, Mr.  Forth  !  Mr.  Rivers  ! '  I  envy  you  that  mo- 
ment !" 


198  BELINDA. 


But  at  this  Belinda  tears  herself  free. 

"  This  is  too  much  !  "  she  says,  in  a  suffocated  voice, 
and  struggling  to  reach  the  door.  "  Let  me  go  !  I  must 
go  !  I  can  bear  no  more  !  " 

But  Sarah  falls  on  her  knees,  and  catches  her  sister's 
gown. 

"  Do  you  think  it  as  bad  as  the  reality  will  be  ?  "  she 
asks,  in  a  thrilling,  clear  voice.  "And  you  will  not  be 
able  to  run  away  from  it !  Do  you  suppose  that  there 
will  be  a  single  corner  in  the  whole  earth  in  which  you 
can  take  refuge  from  it  ?  " 

Something  in  Sarah's  tone  has,  more  than  her  detain- 
ing gesture,  arrested  Belinda's  flight.  Stock-still  she 
stands,  in  a  wretched  irresolution,  death-pale. 

"  It  is  too  late  !  "  she  murmurs  miserably. 

"  It  is  not  too  late  !  "  cries  Sarah,  in  wild  excitement, 
clasping  her  sister's  knees  ;  "it  will  be  too  late  after  the 
10th,  but  it  is  not  too  late  now.  Give  it  up  !  Throw  him 
over  !  What  will  he  care  ?  What  harm  will  it  do  him  ? 
How  much  the  worse  is  he  for  having  been  thrown  over 
by  me?" 

Belinda  still  stands,  white  and  trembling,  her  eyes 
staring  stonily  out  into  vacancy.  Before  them,  though 
they  seem  to  see  nothing,  stands  that  dreadful  vision 
conjured  up  by  her  sister ;  and  the  sight  of  it  makes 
every  limb  shake. 

"  It  is  impossible  !  "  she  says  feebly. 

"It  is  not  impossible  !  "  asseverates  Sarah,  in  passion- 
ate heat.  "Give  me  a  chance,  and  I  will  show  you 
whether  it  is  possible  or  no  !  Let  me  tell  him.  Give  me 
that  commission  as  my  Christmas-box  ;  it  would  be  the 
best  I  ever  had  !  I  will  tell  him,"  laughing  rather  hys- 
terically, "that  it  is  a  constitutional  peculiarity  of  our 
family  ! " 

Perhaps  it  is  Sarah's  laugh  that  recalls  her  sister  to  a 


BELINDA.      <-.  199 


more  normal  condition  of  feeling.  With  a  long  sigh  she 
comes  back  to  reality. 

"  Who  would  tell  granny  ?  "  she  asks,  with  a  sarcastic 
smile.  "  Who  would  dare  break  to  her  that  she  was  not 
to  be  robbed  of  her  darling  after  all  ?  " 

"Z would  !  "  cries  Sarah,  with  delighted  eagerness.  "  I 
know  few  things  in  the  world  that  would  give  me  a  purer 
pleasure.  Let  me  go  now,  at  once !  Strike  while  the 
iron  is  hot ! "  jumping  up,  and  moving  in  her  turn  rap- 
idly toward  the  door.  But  it  is  now  Belinda  who  detains 
her. 

" Pooh ! "  she  says  coldly ;  "it  was  only  a  flight  of 
fancy  on  my  part.  It  would  be  amusing  to  give  her  a 
fright ;  but  she  has  no  real  cause  for  alarm.  What 
change  has  happened  that  I  should  change  ?  "  in  a  lifeless 
tone.  "Your  word-painting  was  so  vivid,  that  for  one 
moment  I  thought  he  had  come  back  ;  but  it  seems  not. 
I  think,"  with  a  bitter  smile,  "  that  if  I  waited  for  him  to 
come  back  to  me,  I  should  wait  my  life  long." 

"  I  do  not  ask  you  to  wait  your  life  long,"  cries  Sarah, 
redoubling  that  energy  of  persuasion  which,  as  she  dis- 
appointedly sees,  has  been  hitherto  exercised  in  vain. 
"I  only  ask  you  to  wait  one  month!  Surely,"  with  a 
scathing  sneer,  "the  joys  that  you  expect  are  not  so 
poignant  but  that  you  can  afford  to  defer  them  for  four 
weeks  ! " 

"  Why  should  I  defer  them  ? "  asks  Belinda,  with  a 
fierce  restlessness  in  eye  and  gesture.  "  If  I  had  had  my 
will,  I  should  have  been  married  by  now.  It  is  this  state 
of  transition  which  is  worst  of  all  ;  one  is  unhinged  ;  one 
is  off  one's  balance." 

Sarah  has  again  fallen  down  on  the  floor  before  her 
sister,  and  is  again  suppliantly  clasping  her  knees. 

"  One  month  !  one  month  ! "  she  cries  beseechingly. 
"  And  before  the  month  is  out,  you  may  be  down  on  your 


200  BELINDA. 

knees  as  I  am,  thanking  God  and  me  for  having  saved 
you  from  perdition.  One  month  !  one  month  !  " 

She  has  pressed  her  head  against  her  sister's  gown, 
and  through  the  woolen  stuff  her  tears  are  soaking — 
Sarah's  rare  tears  ! 

There  is  such  a  compelling  ring  in  her  voice  that  Be- 
linda's cold,  sick  heart  throbs  beneath  it.  Again  that 
vision  rises  before  her,  but  changed  and  beautified. 
Rivers  is  coming  into  the  room,  but  between  him  and 
her  thrusts  itself  no  chill,  pedant  figure. 

As  she  so  stands  hesitating,  thrilling,  in  a  waking 
dream,  the  door  of  the  room  does  in  effect  fly  open,  and 
some  one  enters.  Is  it  Rivers  ?  Alas,  no  ! 

"  A  merry  Christmas  to  you !  "  bawls  Miss  Watson, 
noisily  entering,  and  throwing  her  greeting  at  them  like 
a  paving-stone.  "  I  have  just  been  up  to  wish  granny  a 
merry  Christmas,  but  she  does  not  seem  very  bright,  eh  ? 
Do  you  think  she  is  breaking  at  all  ?  She  did  not  seem 
up  to  her  usual  mark  !  " 

Sarah  has  sprung  to  her  feet,  her  habitual  aplomb 
gone,  and  her  one  impulse  to  hide,  at  any  price,  her  tear- 
stained  face  from  the  horny  eyes  of  the  intruder. 

"  Why,  you  do  not  look  very  bright  either  !  "  cries  the 
latter,  looking  inquisitively  from  one  to  the  other  of  the 
girls'  dismal  faces.  "What  is  it?  Christmas  bills? 
Colds  ?  You  look  as  if  you  had  a  cold  !  "  concentrating 
her  whole  attention  upon  Sarah,  whose  face  is  so  little 
used  to  being  inundated  with  tears  that  it  resents  it,  and 
shows  the  traces  more  plainly  than  does  one  that  is  fre- 
quently bewept. 

"  I  have,"  she  answers,  snatching  eagerly  at  the  excuse, 
and  violently  resuming  a  part  of  her  usual  nonchalant 
self-command  ;  "  a  terrific  cold.  I  have  had  it  for — for 
years!  If  I  were  you,  I  would  not  come  near  me,  or  I 
shall  give  it  you  as  soon  as  look  at  you  ! " 


BELINDA.  201 


"  Pooh  !  "  replies  Miss  Watson  doughtily.  "  You 
should  take  a  cold  bath  all  the  year  round,  and  wear 
flannel  next  your  skin.  Look  at  me  !  " 

"  Are  you  the  result  of  taking  a  cold  bath  all  the  year 
round,  and  wearing  flannel  next  the  skin  ? "  asks  Sarah 
innocently,  stealing  a  covert  glance  at  her  own  foggy 
image  in  the  little  Chippendale  mirror  over  the  mantel- 
piece, to  see  how  far  she  is  recovered. 

But  Miss  Watson  does  not  hear. 

"  I  am  sure  I  do  not  know  how  I  ever  got  here  ! " 
continues  she,  drawing  up  a  chair  to  the  fire,  and  setting 
her  large  feet  on  the  fender  ;  "  there  is  not  a  cab  to  be 
had.  I  felt  my  way  all  round  Berkeley  Square  by  the 
railings.  Five  or  six  times  I  was  as  nearly  as  possible  run 
over  ! " 

"  Just  heavens,  why  not  quite  ?  "  murmurs  Sarah  under 
her  breath. 

"  I  never  remember  such  a  Christmas  Day ;  do  you 
ever  remember  such  a  Christmas  Day  ?  I  have  just  been 
asking  granny  whether,  in  all  her  long  experience,  she  ever 
remembers  such  a  Christmas  Day." 

"  If  you  have  been  appealing  to  granny's  long  experi- 
ence," rejoins  Sarah  sarcastically,  "no  wonder  you  did 
not  find  her  very  bright ;  there  is  nothing  in  the  world 
that  she  hates  so  much." 

"  I  told  her  how  ill  I  thought  her  looking,"  goes  on 
the  visitor  comfortably,  rubbing  her  knees,  advanced  in 
close  proximity  to  the  fire  ;  "  she  tells  me  that  it  is  the 
climate  ;  that  it  is  killing  her  by  inches.  She  seems  to 
have  her  heart  set  upon  going  to  the  Riviera  ;  why  does 
not  she  go  ?  "  with  another  look  of  acute  inquisitiveness 
darted  at  her  two  companions.  "She  spoke  of  there 
being  some  tiresome  hitch — something  in  the  way  ;  what 
is  it— eh?" 

"  We  can  not  bear  to  go  so  far  away  from  you,"  re- 


202  BELINDA. 


plies  Sarah  impudently,  but  with  a  nervous  laugh  and 
look  toward  her  sister  ;  "  that  is  it." 

But  a  curiosity  so  robust  as  Miss  Watson's  is  not  to 
blunted  by  a  jest.  That  great  Toledo  blade  is  not  to  be 
turned  aside  by  a  light  rapier. 

"  No  question  of  £  s.  d.,  eh  ?  "  says  she  persistently  ; 
"  the  Riviera  grows  dearer  every  year  !  No  ?  Anything 
about  either  of  you  then  ?  "  trying  to  get  a  better  idea  of 
Belinda  than  the  rather  drooped  nape  of  her  white  neck 
and  one  homespun  shoulder  afford  ;  "  any  little— little 
entanglement,  eh?" 

"  You  have  hit  it !  "  cries  Sarah  jeeringly  ;  "  it  is  use- 
less to  try  and  conceal  anything  from  you  :  we  are  en- 
deavoring to  arrange  a  marriage  between  me  and  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury ;  and  as  he  can  not  con- 
veniently leave  his  see,  we  think  it  as  well  that  I  should 
remain  in  the  neighborhood." 

It  is  obvious  that  nothing  is  to  be  made  of  Sarah  ; 
the  visitor  turns  her  attention  toward  the  other  sis- 
ter. 

"  Any  more  Latin  exercises,  Belinda  ?  "  she  asks  in  a 
rallying  voice  ;  "  has  Professor  Forth  been  helping  you 
to  do  any  more  Latin  exercises  ?  does  he  often  come  ?  do 
you  see  much  of  him  ?  does  he  ever  ask  you  to  go  down 
to  Oxbridge,  eh  ?  " 

To  these  questions  Belinda's  answer  is  so  unready  that 
her  junior  has  again  to  come  to  her  aid. 

"  Of  course,"  she  answers  ironically  ;  "  but  he  says  he 
will  not  have  us,  unless  we  bring  you  too." 

"  As  to  that,"  replies  Miss  Watson,  her  rhinoceros-hide 
quite  unpunctured  by  the  pricks  of  this  angry  persiflage, 
"  I  can  tell  you  I  have  a  very  good  mind  to  take  a  run 
down  there.  What  do  you  say  to  our  making  up  a 
party  ?  we  would  make  him  give  us  luncheon  and  take  us 
about ;  they  are  always  delighted  to  give  one  luncheon 


BELINDA.  203 


and  take  one  about  ;  and  if  we  can  get  hold  of  Rivers,  we 
will  make  him  come  too." 

She  looks  triumphantly  round  to  collect  the  suffrages 
of  her  companions  as  to  this  project  ;  but  neither  is  equal 
to  giving  utterance  to  any  opinion  upon  it. 

"  Apropos  of  Rivers,"  continues  the  other,  too  happy 
in  the  sound  of  her  own  voice  to  miss  the  lacking  re- 
sponse, and  addressing  the  observation  more  especially  to 
Belinda,  "  a  very  odd  thing  happened  to  me.  I  had  not 
gone  five  yards  from  your  house  the  other  day,  before  I 
met  him.  I  asked  him  at  once  whether  he  was  on  his 
way  to  call  upon  you." 

"And  he  said  what?"  asks  Sarah,  trying  to  speak 
lightly,  but  with  a  hurry  in  her  voice  that  she  can  not 
still 

"He  said 'No.'" 

"  That  answer  had  at  least  the  merit  of  brevity,"  re- 
plies Sarah,  laughing  forcedly  and  changing  her  position 
so  as  to  interpose  the  slight  bulwark  of  her  girlish  figure 
between  her  sister  and  their  guest. 

" I  asked  him  why  not.  I  said,  'Do  go  ;  they  expect 
you.'" 

"  That  did  not  show  a  rigorous  attention  to  truth  on 
your  part,"  rejoins  Sarah  sharply  :  "  we  did  not  expect 
him.  But  what  did  he  say  to  that?  was  his  answer 
marked  by  the  same  courteous  diff useness  as  before  ?  " 

"  He  did  not  say  anything  ;  he  walked  on  very  fast 
and  hailed  a  hansom  ;  but  I  should  not  wonder  if  he  did 
come,  after  all,"  consolingly.  "I  called  out  to  him  just 
as  he-  was  driving  off,  to  be  sure  not  to  forget.  Is  that 
the  luncheon-bell  ?  Dear  me  !  how  the  morning  has  run 
away  !  I  suppose,"  with  her  loud  assured  laugh,  "  that 
you  will  give  me  a  slice  of  beef  and  plum-pudding,  will 
not  you,  eh  ?  " 


204:  BELINDA. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

AFTER  that  Christmas  morning  Sarah  spends  her  elo- 
quence in  vain.  She  may  draw  what  pictures  and  practice 
what  oratory  and  cry  what  tears  she  chooses.  Of  what 
use  is  it  to  draw  pictures  for,  or  address  appeals  to,  or 
weep  tears  over,  a  stone  ?  And  as  far  as  any  malleability 
or  power  of  receiving  impressions  from  without  goes,  Be- 
linda is  henceforth  a  stone.  She  accepts  all  her  sister's 
appeals  in  a  sullen,  dogged  silence.  Whether  she  ever 
even  hears  them,  Sarah  is  ignorant.  She  gives  no  sign  of 
having  done  so  by  any  least  emotion  produced  by  them. 
She  listens,  or  seems  to  listen,  with  phlegmatic  indiffer- 
ence to  the  sarcasms,  vituperations,  witticisms,  poured 
from  Sarah's  cornucopia  upon  her  future  husband.  They 
awake  in  her  neither  anger  nor  pain.  She  makes  no  ef- 
fort to  check  them.  Apparently  she  would  as  soon  hear 
them  as  not.  But  at  the  end  of  them,  when  Sarah,  from 
pure  loss  of  breath — not,  Heaven  knows,  from  any  lack  of 
good-will ! — has  paused,  things  are  at  precisely  the  same 
point  as  they  were  when  she  began. 

Beaten  and  discouraged,  she  desists  at  last.  Not  in- 
deed that  she  ever  constrains  herself  so  far  as  to  omit 
tacking  on  some  abusive  adjective  to  the  name  of  her  fu- 
ture brother-in-law  whenever  she  has  occasion  to  mention 
him.  Nor  is  it  until  she  has  exhausted  every  possible  ex- 
pletive as  far  as  she  knows  the  English  language,  and  has 
applied  them  not  only  to  him,  but  to  his  mother,  that  she 
desists  at  all.  She  relieves  her  feelings  by  putting  all 
the  dogs  into  mourning,  tying  a  piece  of  black  crape 
round  each  of  their  tails  ;  a  proceeding  which  fills  Punch 
with  fury,  Slutty  with  mauvaise  honte,  and  Jane  with 
pride.  Jane  has  that  love  for  finery  which  is  implanted 
in  many  plain  persons. 


BELINDA.  205 


With  a  face  set  like  a  flint,  Belinda  marches  to  her 
doom.  And  neither  dogs  nor  men  can  retard  the  ap- 
proach of  the  date  of  that  doom.  There  are  no  prepa- 
rations to  delay  it.  She  has  steadfastly  adhered  to  her 
determination  to  have  no  new  clothes. 

"  A  willful  woman  will  have  her  way  !  "  Mrs.  Church- 
ill says,  shaking  that  head  whose  eyes  seem  to  grow 
brighter  and  her  cheeks  pinker  and  smoother  as  each  day 
brings  her  nearer  to  the  10th  of  January  and  the  South 
of  France.  "  I  suppose  you  know  your  own  affairs  best ; 
and  I  fancy  that  you  will  not  have  much  need  for  dress 
at  Oxbridge  ;  the  only  time  that  I  was  there  I  thought 
all  the  women  shockingly  fagotte!  " 

She  stops  and  shrugs  her  shoulders  at  the  recollection  ; 
but  even  as  she  shrugs,  a  smile  hovers  across  her  lips. 
She  is  thinking  that  her  French  tour  will  be  none  the 
worse  for  having  her  purse  made  heavier  by  the  weight 
of  Belinda's  corbeille. 

"  I  am  too  annoyed  about  Belinda,"  she  says  on  an- 
other occasion  to  her  younger  granddaughter  ;  "  but  you 
know  how  useless  argument  is  !  She  is  as  obstinate  as  a 
mule  ;  and  since  she  is  determined  to  be  no  expense  to 
me,  I  was  thinking,"  her  eye  lightening,  "  of  getting  one 
or  two  things  for  ourselves  :  I  should  not  wonder  if,  after 
all,  I  might  manage  to  let  you  have  that  plush  cloak 
trimmed  with  fisher-tails  that  you  asked  me  for  at  Ce- 
cile's  the  other  day.  Come  !  what  do  you  say  ?  "  tapping 
her  cheek  with  an  air  of  fond  f riskiness. 

"  I  say  that  I  will  not  have  it !  "  replies  Sarah  dogged- 
ly ;  "  it  is  blood-money  !  " 

The  settlements  are  drawn  up.  Belinda's  widowhood 
and  her  younger  children  are  provided  for.  Bought  are 
license  and  ring.  The  latter  Professor  Forth  brought 
one  day  to  be  tried  on  ;  and  Belinda,  with  white,  shut 
lips,  pallidly  essayed  it.  There  is  no  bustle  of  arriving 


206  BELINDA. 


parcels,  no  wedding  presents  to  be  displayed.  Miss 
Churchill  has  sternly  insisted  upon  an  absolute  secrecy 
being  observed  as  regards  her  engagement.  She  can 
bear  to  be  married,  but  gifts  and  congratulations  upon 
her  marriage  she  could  not  bear.  So  that  the  comers  and 

goers  to  the  little  house  in Street  still  come  and  go, 

without  suspicion  that  anything  out  of  the  ordinary  course 
is  brewing  beneath  its  modest  roof. 

Mrs.  Churchill  would  have  preferred  that  the  betroth- 
al should  be  proclaimed  from  the  house-tops.  It  would 
give  it  a  body  and  solidity  that  just  at  first  she  fears  it 
lacks.  An  engagement  known  to  all  the  world  is  much 
more  difficult  of  rupture  than  one  to  which  only  the 
three  or  four  persons  most  nearly  concerned  are  privy. 

"  Belinda  is  so  odd  and  crotchety,"  she  says  one  after- 
noon, as  she  and  Sarah  are  driving  home  through  the 
Park  together  ;  "  why,  if  she  is  in  earnest,  should  she 
object  to  people  being  told  ?  Do  you  think  there  would 
be  any  harm  in  my  just  giving  a  hint  of  it  to  the  Craw- 
fords,  and  Dalzells,  and  Lady  Hunt,  and — and  just  our 
own  intimates  ?  They  will  be  so  hurt  at  being  left  out 
in  the  cold  ;  and  I  am  sure  that  they  would  give  her 
something  handsome.  Even  if  she  does  not  care  for 
personal  ornaments,  they  might  give  her  plate  ;  I  do  not 
suppose,"  with  an  amused  smile,  "  that  there  is  likely  to 
be  much  plate  in  the  Forth  family  ! " 

"  And  you  think,"  retorts  Sarah,  with  a  fiery  eye  and 
a  curling  lip,  "  that  the  more  people  you  tell  about  it  the 
more  Belinda  will  be  nailed  to  keeping  it !  Do  you  think 
that,  after  all  these  years,  I  do  not  understand  you  ?  " 

The  elder  woman  looks  rather  foolish,  and  does  not 
repeat  her  suggestion. 

And  now,  indeed,  all  necessity  for  it  is  at  an  end. 
There  is  obviously  no  need  to  tie  Belinda  with  the  cords 
of  convention  and  public  opinion  to  her  fagot  and  stake. 


BELINDA.  207 


The  10th  of  January  has  come,  and  she  has  as  yet  shown 
no  sign  of  flinching.  To  insure  the  greater  privacy,  the 
marriage  is  to  take  place  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
Not  a  soul  is  bidden  to  it.  There  are  no  bridesmaids  or 
groomsmen,  no  train  of  wedding  guests. 

Even  Mrs.  Churchill,  on  hearing  of  the  earliness  of 
the  hour,  has,  like  those  wedding  guests  that  Scripture 
speaks  of,  begged  to  be  excused.  Perhaps  it  is  not  only 
the  raw  winter  morning  from  which  she  shrinks.  Per- 
haps she  is  not  particularly  anxious  to  be  an  ocular  wit- 
ness of  that  ceremony  which  she  has  certainly  speeded 
with  her  prayers. 

"  I  hope  you  do  not  think  it  unkind  of  me,  my  child," 
she  says,  appearing  at  her  dressing-room  door  in  a  pretty 
laced  dressing-gown  as  she  hears  her  granddaughter  de- 
scending the  stairs  to  the  brougham ;  "  but  you  know 
what  a  London  church  is,  and  you  know  what  my  neu- 
ralgia is.  How  nice  you  look  !  "  smilingly  surveying  the 
dark,  homespun  suit,  so  dark  and  brown  as  in  the  shabby 
light  to  look  quite  black,  and  the  rigidly  plain  close  bon- 
net which  her  granddaughter  has  chosen  for  her  wedding 
garments. 

Belinda  smiles  too — a  smile  of  which  her  grandmother 
is  not  particularly  fond  of  thinking  afterward. 

"  Yes,  do  not  I  ?  "  she  says—"  so  like  a  bride  !  " 

"  In  point  of  fact,"  continues  the  old  lady  rather  hur- 
riedly, and  not  much  relishing  the  tone  of  this  acquies- 
cence in  her  compliment,  "  I  shall  be  far  more  useful  at 
home  ;  I  shall  insure  the  house  being  thoroughly  well 
warmed  for  you  when  you  come  back  ;  you  shall  find 
roaring  fires  in  every  room  ! " 

"  We  shall  not  come  back,"  replies  Belinda  quietly. 

"  Not  come  back  ? "  (with  an  accent  of  extreme  sur- 
prise). "  You  are  going  abroad  then  ?  " 

"No  ;  but  there  is  nothing  to  come  back  for." 


208  BELINDA. 


"And  whose  fault  is  that,  pray?"  asks  her  grand- 
mother with  an  uncomfortable  laugh.  "  If  I  had  had  my 
way,  there  would  have  been  plenty  to  come  back  for  :  a 
good  breakfast ;  a  score  of  people  ;  speeches  !  " 

"  But  that  was  not  my  way,"  replies  Belinda,  again 
faintly  smiling  ;  "  and  as  you  say  sometimes,  tons  les 
godts  sont  respectables.  I  am  afraid  that  I  shall  be  late 
if  I  delay  any  longer  ;  good-by,  granny." 

She  speaks  the  last  two  words  quite  gently  and 
friendly,  and  holds  out  her  fair  cold  cheek  to  be  kissed. 
Mrs.  Churchill  is  afterward  not  much  fonder  of  thinking 
of  the  feel  of  that  cheek,  than  of  the  look  of  that  smile 
before  spoken  of. 

"  I  wish  I  had  not  kissed  her,"  she  says  to  herself  fret- 
fully afterward,  as  she  sits  with  her  still  pretty  feet  rest- 
ing on  the  well-warmed  fender  in  the  privacy  of  her  dress- 
ing-room, when  the  brougham  has  rolled  away  ;  "  it  was 
almost  like  kissing  a  dead  person  !  " 

And  meanwhile,  through  the  dismal  morning  streets, 
dirty  with  that  worst  of  all  dirtiness,  dirty  snow,  and 
where  the  lamp-lighters  have  only  just  put  out  the  lamps, 
and  would  have  done  better  not  to  put  them  out  at  all, 
Belinda  drives,  her  sister  by  her  side.  The  angry  tears 
are  raining  down  Sarah's  face,  encouraged  rather  than 
checked  by  their  owner.  In  her  small  warm  hands  (for 
even  on  a  bitter  January  morning  wrath  is  warming)  lie 
tightly  clasped  Belinda's  cold  ones.  The  shop-boys  are 
only  just  beginning  to  take  down  the  shutters  ;  in  the 
haberdashers'  undressed  windows,  instead  of  costly  fab- 
rics and  dainty  webs,  are  to  be  seen  nothing  but  bare 
boards  and  skeleton  stands.  The  blue-armed  house-maids 
are  scrubbing  the  door-steps  ;  through  the  squares  the 
milk-carts  rush. 

"I  wish  you  would  cry,"  says  Sarah  presently,  from 
among  her  sobs. 


BELINDA,     w.  209 


"  Why  should  I  ?  "  replies  Belinda  calmly  ;  "  it  is  my 
own  doing." 

"  That  is  the  worst  of  it !  "  cries  Sarah  passionately  ; 
"if  you  were  doing  it  for  some  great  cause — to  save 
granny  from  the  workhouse,  or  me  from  the  scaffold — 
there  would  be  some  sense  in  it !  there  is  no  sense  now  !  " 

There  is  no  sense  in  it !  The  words  keep  echoing, 
dancing — set  to  a  teasing  tune — in  Belinda's  head  for  the 
rest  of  the  way.  They  reach  the  church-door.  The  car- 
riage stops. 

"  We  have  got  to  the  gallows,  it  seems  !  "  says  Sarah, 
with  a  fresh  burst  of  sobs  ;  then,  vehemently  wringing 
her  sister's  hands,  she  cries  desperately  :  "  Belinda  !  it  is 
not  too  late  yet !  there  is  still  time  !  it  is  not  too  late  yet 
to  go  back  ! " 

"I  have  no  wish  to  go  back,"  replies  Belinda  firmly, 
though  her  voice  is  low  and  weak,  and  her  lips  are  white  ; 
"why  should  I  wish  to  go  back,  when  it  is  my  own 
doing?" 

So  they  get  out.  At  the  door  they  are  received  by  a 
Churchill  cousin,  who,  summoned  as  Belinda's  nearest 
male  relative  to  give  her  away,  stands  awaiting  them, 
cross  and  shivering. 

"Has  he  come  ?  is  he  here  ?  I  do  not  see  him  !  "  says 
Sarah,  with  a  last  flare-up  of  hope,  peering  eagerly  into 
the  church,  where  here  and  there  (only  here  and  there, 
for  they  are  not  nearly  all  lit)  a  gas-lamp  displays  its 
dreary  yellow  flicker  on  the  background  of  thick  morning 
fog.  "  Yes  ;  then  " — with  a  sudden  collapse  into  disap- 
pointment— "  then  he  has  not  had  a  paraly tfc  stroke  at 
the  last  moment,  worse  luck  ! " 

They  walk  up  the  aisle  ;  a  snuffy  old  pew-opener  in  a 
black  crape  bonnet  preceding  them  ;  Belinda  on  her 
cousin's  arm  ;  Sarah,  in  her  ostentatiously  paraded  grief, 
bringing  up  the  rear.  They  have  arrived  at  the  altar, 


210  BELINDA. 


the  candles  upon  which  are  lit,  their  wavering  light  fall- 
ing upon  an  impatient  clergyman  and  two  elderly  men  ; 
for  the  bridegroom  has  brought  with  him  a  friend  of  his 
own  age  and  calling,  whom  he  has  summoned  from  Ox- 
bridge to  support  him.  The  Churchill  cousin  has  never 
before  seen  the  bridegroom,  nor  has  the  bridegroom's 
friend  ever  before  seen  the  bride.  The  opposing  parties 
now  stare  at  each  other  in  unaffected  astonishment.  All 
through  the  service,  the  young  Churchill,  who  had  once 
himself  thrown  out  feelers  in  the  direction  of  Belinda, 
and  had  them  civilly  and  firmly  at  once  returned  to  him, 
is  setting  himself  angrily  in  imagination  by  the  side  of 
the  bridegroom,  and  wondering  what  the  devil  Belinda 
can  have  seen  in  this  ugly  old  curmudgeon  to  prefer  to 
himself. 

All  through  the  service,  the  bridegroom's  supporter 
is  staring  in  gaping  wonder  at  the  beautiful  broken- 
hearted-looking girl,  who  has  mysteriously  elected  to 
unite  her  fate  with  that  of  his  old  friend  ;  ruefully  re- 
flecting that  she  will  bring  certain  death  to  the  constitu- 
tionals, and  the  pipes,  and  the  discussions  on  the  Enclitic 
de,  and  such-like  light  subjects,  which  they  have  been  in 
the  habit  of  sharing  for  the  best  part  of  the  last  forty 
years.  All  through  the  service  the  bridegroom  is  peev- 
ishly glancing  over  his  shoulder  to  see  whence  comes  the 
draught  of  raw  air  that,  despite  the  black  velvet  skull- 
cap with  which  he  has  furnished  himself,  he  feels  at  bale- 
ful play  about  his  ears.  Belinda,  alone,  looks  neither  to 
the  right  nor  to  the  left.  If  she  were  really  the  statue 
which  her  "fair,  still  body  so  closely  resembles,  she  could 
not  be  less  conscious  than  she  is  of  dank  nipping  air  or 
curious  look.  She  appears  to  listen  with  close  attention, 
or  is  it  indeed  not  attention,  but  the  impassiveness  of 
stone  ?  Only  once  through  all  the  service  does  her  face 
come  to  life  ;  and  then  it  is  stabbed  into  life,  as  one  has 


BELINDA.       <--  211 


heard  in  the  grisly  dissecting-room  tale,  of  him  who, 
thought  dead,  was  brought  back  to  agonizing  momentary 
life  by  a  knife-thrust !  The  knife-thrust  that  brings 
Belinda  back  to  life  lies  in  the  words,  "Forsaking  all 
other,  keep  thee  only  unto  him  so  long  as  ye  both  shall 
live." 

"  Forsaking  all  other ! "  She  has  been  spared  the 
trouble  of  forsaking  that  other.  Has  not  he  been  before- 
hand with  her  ?  Has  not  he  forsaken  her  ? 

Sarah,  closely  watching  her,  sees  her  ashy  features 
contract  in  such  a  spasm  of  mortal  pain,  that  she  involun- 
tarily starts  forward.  Is  she  going  to  faint?  If  she 
faint,  and  is  carried  out  of  church,  may  not  she  be  saved 
even  yet !  She  is  not  yet  married  !  The  service  is  not 
yet  ended  !  But  the  next  glance  at  her  face  dispels  the 
momentary  hope.  Belinda  is  not  going  to  faint ;  she  has 
gained  back  her  rigidity.  She  is  dead  again. 

It  is  over  now  ;  over — even  to  the  signing  of  names 
in  the  vestry.  The  clergyman  offers  his  congratula- 
tions, but  he  does  it  hastily  and  abstractedly.  He  is 
thinking  whether  he  will  have  time  for  a  good  warming 
and  breakfasting  before  setting  off  for  the  funeral  at 
Kensal  Green,  at  which  he  has  to  assist.  The  bride- 
groom's friend  and  the  Churchill  cousin  also  offer  theirs  ; 
but  those  of  the  first  sound  incredulous,  and  those  of 
the  latter  ironical.  Sarah  alone  keeps  utter  silence.  The 
brougham  stands  at  the  door,  the  horse  fidgety  and  stung 
by  the  cold.  A  crossing-sweeper  and  two  pinched  street 
children  are  watching  the  strange  wedding-party's  exit. 
The  bridegroom,  great-coated  and  comf  ortered  to  the  end 
of  his  long  nose,  is  bidding  adieu  to  his  ally.  The  bride 
turns  to  her  sister  : 

"It  is  done  now  !  "  she  says  panting] y  ;  "there  is  no 
going  back  from  it  now  !  " 

"  None  ! "  replies  Sarah  dully. 


212  BELINDA. 


"  Say  something  to  me,  Sarah  ;  wish  me  something 
good!" 

She  has  flung  her  arms  round  her  sister  in  an  epanche- 
ment  most  unusual  with  her.  Her  icy  cheek  is  hard 
pressed  against  her  sister's  hot  and  tear-reddened  one. 

"  I  wish  you — I  wish  you — "  cries  Sarah,  stammering, 
what  between  her  sobs,  the  almost  ungovernable  impulse 
to  invoke  upon  her  sister  a  speedy  widowhood,  and  the 
hopelessness  of  finding  any  other  wish  that  will  not  sound 
— mockery. 

"  You — you  can  not  find  anything  to  wish  me  !  "  says 
Belinda  tremulously.  "  You  are  right ;  there  is  noth- 
ing." 

"I — I  wish  you,"  says  Sarah,  driven  to  desperation 
by  this  tone,  and  clinging  convulsively  to  her  sister  as 
though  ten  bridegrooms  should  not  force  them  apart — 
"  I  wish  you  many  happy  returns  of  the  day  !  "  breaking 
into  an  hysterical  laugh.  "  That  is  ambiguous  !  I  may 
attach  what  meaning  I  choose  to  it." 

These  are  the  last  words  Belinda  Forth  hears,  before 
the  brougham  whirls  her  away.  The  Churchill  cousin 
takes  Sarah  home  in  a  hansom,  and  a  very  unpleasant 
drive  he  has,  as  she  cries  violently  the  whole  way,  in  pas- 
sionate self-reproach  at  having  found  nothing  kinder  to 
say. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

BELINDA  has  been  married  three  days.  We  are  crea- 
tures of  habit,  as  every  one  knows  ;  and  it  is  surprising 
with  what  quick  pliability  we  find  ourselves  cutting  off 
and  tucking  in  whatever  angles  prevent  our  fitting  into 
any  new  niche  that  it  may  be  our  fate  to  occupy.  But 
this  process,  though  rapid,  is  usually  of  somewhat  longer 


BELINDA.  213 


accomplishment  than  three  days.  At  all  events,  Belinda 
has  not  yet  got  into  the  habit  of  being  married.  There 
still  seems  to  her  something  improbable — nay,  monstrous 
— in  the  fact  of  herself  sitting  opposite  to  Professor 
Forth  at  breakfast  in  their  Folkestone  lodgings,  pouring 
weak  tea  for  him  out  of  a  britannia-metal  teapot,  and 
sedulously  recollecting  how  many  lumps  of  sugar  he 
likes,  as  she  has  already  discovered  that  he  has  an  objec- 
tion to  repeating  the  information.  Nor  is  it  less  mon- 
strous to  be  warming  his  overcoat,  and  cutting  his  news- 
papers, and  ordering  his  dinners  with  that  nice  attention 
to  digestibility  and  economy  which  she  finds  to  be  ex- 
pected of  her.  They  have  been  enormously  long,  these 
three  days.  It  seems  to  her  as  if  for  months  she  has 
been  looking  at  those  hideous  ornaments  on  the  draw- 
ing-room chimney-piece,  and  trying  to  draw  the  skimp 
summer  curtains  that  will  not  draw  across  the  shutter- 
less  windows,  rattled  by  the  wind.  For  months  she  has 
been  listening  to  the  eternal  sighing,  sobbing,  whistling, 
howling  of  that  same  wind,  and  to  the  sea  banging  on  the 
cold  shore.  For  months  she  has  been  walking  with  Pro- 
fessor Forth  up  and  down,  up  and  down  the  Leas,  six 
turns  this  way,  six  turns  that  way.  For  months  she  has 
been  writing  his  letters  till  her  hand  ached,  and  reading 
aloud  to  him  till  her  voice  cracked.  As  for  the  read- 
ing and  writing,  she  can  not  have  too  much  of  them,  the 
more  the  better  !  There  is  nothing  like  occupation — a 
continuous,  settled  occupation — nothing  like  occupation 
for  keeping  out  of  one's  head  those  words  of  Sarah's 
that  ring  so  foolishly  dinning  in  her  ears,  "  There  is  no 
sense  in  it  !  there  is  no  sense  in  it  !  "  She  will  not  listen 
to  them.  Even  if  they  are  true,  of  what  profit  to  hearken 
to  them  now  ?  And  reading  and  writing  render  conver- 
sation, too,  less  necessary.  It  is  certain  that,  however 
determinately  any  one  may  have  confined  his  or  her  con- 


214  BELINDA. 


templation  of  another  person's  character  to  the  intel- 
lectual side  of  it,  it  is  impossible  to  live  with  that  person 
without  discovering  that  he  or  she  has  another  side.  Be- 
linda has  already  discovered  that  her  Professor  has  an- 
other. It  is  surprising  how  much  less  of  his  conversation 
has  turned  during  the  last  three  days  upon  the  problems 
of  the  mind  and  the  sayings  of  the  mighty  dead,  than 
upon  the  price  of  coals  and  the  wickedness  of  lodging- 
house  servants.  The  first  of  these  topics  has  led  to  the 
proposal  that  he  and  his  bride  shall  henceforth  content 
themselves  with  one  fire,  to  be  fed  with  (if  possible)  not 
more  than  two  coal-boxes  per  day  ;  and  the  second  is  at 
present  employing  his  tongue,  his  eyes,  his  thoughts. 
They  are  at  breakfast,  Belinda  seated  behind  the  britan- 
nia-metal  teapot,  her  husband  facing  her,  a  dish  of  fried 
bacon  before  him,  which  latter  object  is  monopolizing  the 
whole  of  his  attention. 

"  It  is  beyond  the  range  of  possibility,"  he  is  saying 
slowly,  "  that  you  and  I  can  have  eaten  a  pound  and  a 
half  of  bacon  in  three  days,  and  I  think  I  noticed  that 
you  did  not  take  any  yesterday." 

"  Did  not  I  ?  "  replies  Belinda  indifferently  ;  "  I  am 
sure  I  forget." 

"  And  if,"  pursues  Mr.  Forth,  his  eyes  ranging  with 
severe  scanning  from  the  bacon-dish  to  the  sugar-basin, 
"  if,  as  Maria  just  now  told  us,  those  few  lumps  are  all 
that  remain  of  the  pound  of  sugar  purchased  by  me  yes- 
terday, it  is  obvious  that  there  must  be  wholesale  theft 
somewhere  ! " 

"  It  is  very  dishonest  of  them,"  replies  Belinda  care- 
lessly, putting  up  her  hand  to  her  hair,  which,  no  longer 
tended  by  a  maid,  feels  oddly  loose  and  uncomfortable  ; 
"if  you  had  allowed  me  to  bring  Jennings,  she  would 
have  looked  after  everything." 

"I  discouraged  the  idea  of  your  bringing  a  maid," 


BELINDA.  215 


replies  he,  nettled,  "  because  I  considered,  and  still  con- 
sider, that  it  would  have  made  a  most  unnecessary  ad- 
dition to  our  expenses.  And  as  to  our  provisions,"  look- 
ing carefully  round  the  room,  "  I  see  that  there  are  sev- 
eral cupboards  ;  there  is  no  reason  why  they  should  not 
be  kept—" 

"Bacon  kept  in  a  cupboard  in  one's  only  sitting- 
room  !  "  cries  Belinda,  breaking  into  an  indignant  laugh  ; 
"  you  can  not  be  serious  !  " 

"  If  you  are  able  to  suggest  any  better  way  of  pre- 
venting their  depredations,  I  shall  be  happy  to  hear  it," 
he  answers  tartly. 

"  If  they  ate  a  flitch  a  day,"  replies  Belinda  hotly,  and 
lifting  her  disdainful  fine  nose  contumaciously  into  the 
air,  "  I  should  say  that  it  was  a  small  evil  compared  to 
our  living  in  the  atmosphere  of  a  chandler's  shop." 

She  rises  precipitately  as  she  speaks — to  her,  at  least, 
Folkestone  has  not  given  an  appetite — and  walks  to  the 
window,  where,  for  the  rest  of  the  breakfast-hour,  she 
presents  a  sociable  homespun  back  to  the  economist  at 
the  breakfast-table.  It  is  not  the  first  time  during  these 
three  days  that  she  has  discovered  that  his  standpoint 
with  regard  to  little  social  possibilities  or  impossibilities 
is  different  from  her  own.  She  had  known  that  she  did 
not  love  him,  but  she  had  not  known  that  he  wore  carpet 
slippers  in  the  drawing-room.  A  tendency  toward  slip- 
pers in  the  drawing-room,  a  passion  for  high  tea,  accom- 
panied by  no  change  of  dress,  are  not  these  sufficient  to 
wreck  a  bride's  happiness  upon  ?  But  worst  of  all,  per- 
haps because  latest  of  all,  has  jarred  upon  her  this  final 
instance  of  how  widely  asunder  are  their  points  of  view. 
It  jars  upon  her  still  as  she  stands  by  the  window  after 
breakfast,  sullenly  drumming  on  the  pane. 

In  the  night  snow  has  fallen,  a  thin  sprinkling  meet- 
ing even  the  sea's  lip,  advancing  even  to  where  the  dull 


216  BELINDA. 


little  gray  waves  set  their  chill  feet  ;  a  shabby  sprinkling 
everywhere  :  not  a  good  thick  cloak  of  snow,  deep  and 
pure,  but  a  scanty  rag,  through  which  every  footstep 
shows  the  hard  dark  ground.  It  jars  upon  her  still,  as 
she  walks  to  church  alone — it  is  Sunday  morning — trying 
to  persuade  herself  that  she  had  not  felt  a  movement  of 
gladness  on  discovering  that  he  had  no  intention  of  ac- 
companying her.  She  walks  along  the  windy  cliff  to 
where  the  church  and  the  red  vicarage  look  out  seaward, 
falling  in,  as  she  goes,  with  a  stream  of  people  bound  to 
the  same  goal.  It  is  a  well-fed,  comfortable  -  looking 
stream,  flowing  prosperously  to  God's  house  ;  smart  furry 
mothers  holding  the  hands  of  smart  furry  little  children, 
fathers  and  tall  young  daughters,  husbands  and  wives. 
There  is  scarcely  one,  as  young  as  Belinda,  who  is  com- 
panionless.  But  she  does  not  think  of  this. 

Her  eyes  are  turned  toward  the  ocean,  that  ocean  for 
the  most  part  hugged  by  a  close  mist,  with  only  one 
patch  of  faintish  glory — a  pale  dazzle  of  dim  gold — on 
which  a  small  fishing-boat  comes  sailing,  its  homely  sails 
transfigured  as  it  goes.  She  is  saying  to  herself,  with  a 
heart-sinking  so  deep  that  she  dare  not  gauge  its  pro- 
fundity : 

"  Is  this  the  man  whose  mind  I  have  married  ?  Is  this 
the  man  who  is  to  teach  me  to  live  by  the  intellect  ?  Is 
this  the  scholar  and  the  sage,  whose  teaching  was  to  lift 
me  out  of  the  circle  of  my  narrow  interests  into  the 
sphere  of  the  Universal  ?  "  she  asks  with  contemptuous  mis- 
givings ;  "  this,  whose  whole  soul  is  occupied  by  mean  par- 
simonies, and  economies  of  cheese-rinds  and  candle-ends  !  " 

She  has  reached  the  church,  but  even  inside  the  conse- 
crated door  she  finds  that  it  is  still  with  her.  It  comes 
between  her  and  the  Christmas  decorations  ;  between 
her  and  the  bowing,  congeeing  clergy  ;  between  her  and 
the  prayers.  A  poor  starling  has  found  its  way  into  the 


BELINDA.  217 


building.  All  through  the  service  it  is  flying  from  side 
to  side,  above  the  heads  of  the  congregation,  under  the 
arched  roof  from  window  to  window.  Children  turn 
their  heads  and  their  eyes,  idly  curious  to  look  after  it. 
All  through  the  sermon  she  hears  the  agonized  pecking 
of  its  poor  beak  against  the  pane,  in  its  efforts  to  escape. 
She  says  to  herself  that  it  is  in  the  same  plight  as  she. 
It,  too,  entered  prison  of  its  own  accord.  When  the  ser- 
vice is  ended,  Belinda  loiters  behind  the  rest  of  the  con- 
gregation, in  order  to  press  half  a  crown  into  the  pew- 
opener's  hand — (what  would  Professor  Forth  say  to  such 
extravagance  ?) — and  to  pour  into  his  ear  an  eager  prayer 
that  he  will  set  all  the  church  doors  and  windows  open, 
to  give  her  starling  a  chance  of  escape.  But,  alas  !  what 
pew-opener  can  ever  let  her  out  ? 

As  she  passes  homeward,  she  finds  that  the  day  has 
bettered.  The  sun  has  swallowed  up  the  mist,  and  now 
shines  steadily  bright,  and  even  sensibly  warm.  The  lit- 
tle waves  are  small  and  mild  as  summer  ones,  though  the 
air  is  still  full  of  penknives.  Perhaps  it  is  the  increased 
brightness  upon  Nature's  face  ;  perhaps  it  is  the  two 
quiet  hours  of  her  own  society  that  have  braced  her  to 
face  with  a  greater  courage  the  lot  she  has  chosen,  and 
the  fried  bacon  that  typifies  it. 

"  I  would  do  it !  "  she  says  to  herself  sternly,  "  and 
now  it  is  done  ;  now  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  put  the 
best  face  upon  it,  and  never  to  own  to  any  one  that  I 
would  have  it  undone.  There  can  never  again  be  so  bad 
a  piece  of  my  life  as  this  ! "  (shuddering)  ;  "  it  is  well  to 
have  the  worst  over  first,  it  will  be  more  endurable  when 
we  get  to  Oxbridge.  I  must  try  to  learn  how  to  look  at 
things  from  his  point  of  view,  to  count  the  grains  of  rice 
for  a  pudding,  and  save  the  old  tea-leaves  !  "  with  a  curl- 
ing lip  ;  "  but  I  will  not  have  the  bacon  kept  in  the  draw- 
ing-room ! " 

10 


218  BELINDA. 


Her  resolutions  in  both  respects  outlast  the  day. 
That  to  make  the  best  of  things  has  body  enough  to 
withstand  even  the  close  examination  to  which  her  hus- 
band subjects  the  Sunday  roast-beef,  in  order  to  discover 
whether  it  has  been  robbed  of  any  of  its  native  suet.  He 
has  a  slow,  munching  way  of  eating,  which  fidgets  her  in- 
expressibly ;  but  she  bears  that  too.  She  even  resists  the 
temptation  to  look  away  from  him.  Since  he  is  to  munch 
opposite  to  her  till  death  do  them  part,  would  it  not  be 
wiser  to  accustom  herself  to  the  sight  ?  Her  resolution 
withstands  also  stoutly  all  the  little  trials  attendant  on 
their  afternoon  constitutional.  When  they  emerge  upon 
the  Leas,  they  see  a  broad  highway  of  molten  copper 
stretching  across  the  sea  to  the  lowering  sun.  Belinda 
asks  leave  to  run  down  the  many  steps  on  the  cliff's  face 
to  the  water's  edge,  to  set  her  feet  in  the  foam  fringe, 
and  watch  the  long  swell  heaving  ocean's  sullen  breast  ; 
but  the  Professor  will  not  hear  of  it.  A  certain  number 
of  brisk  turns  on  the  Leas — always  the  same  number — is 
the  kind  of  walk  to  which  alone  he  gives  his  approbation. 
No  stopping  to  look  at  the  copper  sunset,  or  the  fair  ships 
riding  past ;  nothing  more  likely  to  arrest  the  circulation 
and  chill  the  liver.  They  meet  the  same  people  as  they 
met  yesterday,  and  the  day  before,  and  as  they  will  meet 
to-morrow,  and  the  day  after  ;  the  same  bath-chairs,  the 
same  dogs.  The  sick,  white  woman  with  her  attentive 
burly  husband  ;  the  deformed  child  ;  the  frolicsome  col- 
ley-dogs  ;  the  frivolous  Spitzes,  the  little  blithe  Scotch 
terriers. 

Her  resolution  outlasts  even  the  twilit  hour,  to  her  the 
most  trying  of  the  day.  If  she  were  to  consult  her  own 
wishes,  there  would  be  no  such  hour ;  no  space  inter- 
posed between  the  fading  of  the  daylight  and  the  light- 
ing of  the  gas.  But  it  is  in  Professor  Forth's  programme 
that  there  shall  be  such  an  interval  when  he  leans  back 


BELINDA.  219 


in  his  arm-chair,  with  his  eyes  closed,  and  does  not  wish 
to  be  spoken  to  ;  whether  in  meditation  or  in  sleep  she 
can  not  tell.  There  is  nothing  for  her  but  to  sit  opposite 
to  him,  with  his  idleness,  but  without  his  repose.  The 
lowered  blinds  prevent  her  looking  out  upon  the  first  sun- 
set-reddened, and  by-and-by  moon-silvered  sea.  She  can 
not  even  distinguish  the  lusters  and  the  vulgar  vases  on 
the  chimney-piece.  She  can  not  even  stir  the  fire  into 
such  a  blaze  as  to  enable  her  strong  young  eyes  to  read 
by  it ;  for  to  stir  the  fire  makes  the  coals  burn  quicker. 
It  is  the  hour  when  the  happy  young  build  love-arbors 
out  of,  and  see  brave  sweethearts  in,  the  red  coals. 
What  love-arbor  dare  she  build  ?  What  sweetheart  dare 
she  see  ?  Then  come  the  long  hours  of  reading  aloud. 
They  are  the  most  bearable  of  the  day.  It  does  her  reso- 
lution the  less  credit  to  hold  out  through  them.  How- 
ever, it  does  hold  out.  But  will  it  endure  through  the 
next  day  ?  If  it  does,  it  must  indeed  be  of  a  stout  fiber. 
For  no  sooner  has  the  next  day  risen,  than  it  is  clear  that 
there  has  come  one  of  those  rare  scourge-days  with  which 
God  sometimes  lashes  His  world  ;  one  of  those  days 
whose  date  is  remembered,  which  is  held  up  as  a  stand- 
dard  in  after-years  for  other  fell  days  to  measure  them- 
selves by  ;  a  day  that  wrecks  ships  by  fleets  ;  that  strikes 
down  centenary  oaks  by  scores  ;  that  whelms  trains  in  its 
snow-drifts  ;  that  stiffens  into  frozen  death  the  sheep  on 
the  mountain-side,  and  the  traveler  fate-overtaken  in  the 
snow-choked  country  lane. 

Snow  often  comes  stilly  ;  but  to-day  it  is  blowing — 
blowing  mercilessly  :  not  a  bluff  west  wind,  good-humor- 
edly  roistering,  but  an  inhuman  northeaster,  the  furious 
sleet  driven,  raging  and  sweeping  by  its  hellish  lash. 

When  Belinda  comes  down  to  breakfast,  there  is  not 
a  soul  on  the  Leas  but  the  luckless  baker's  boy  butting 
with  bent  head  against  the  razor-edged  blast.  It  is 


220  BELINDA. 


scarcely  the  day  which  one  would  have  chosen  to  spend 
in  a  flimsily-built  seaside  summer  lodging-house.  The 
Forths'  lodgings  are  no  better  and  no  worse  than  most 
others  of  the  class ;  with  walls  about  as  puny,  with 
woodwork  about  as  warped,  with  gaps  between  doors 
and  carpet  about  as  wide,  with  curtains  as  miserably  in- 
sufficient as  most  of  their  brethren.  Though  every  door 
and  window  is  religiously  closed,  there  is  the  feeling  of 
being  sitting  out  of  doors,  only  more  draughty.  Even 
in  a  warm,  stoutly-built  house  one  would  shiver  ;  but 
here  !  Well,  here  the  cold  is  so  marrow-piercing,  that 
it  usurps  to  itself  the  whole  attention  of  the  mind.  It  is 
not  a  subordinate  governable  cold  that  by  an  effort  of 
the  will  one  may  forget.  It  can  never  be  out  of  the 
thoughts  for  one  moment ;  from  the  hour  of  rising,  until 
that  of  shuddering  back  to  bed  again. 

The  Professor,  always  a  chill-blooded  creature,  sits  all 
day  with  his  knees  within  the  fender,  piled  with  every 
article  of  his  own,  and  several  of  Belinda's  wardrobe. 
Throwing  economy  to  the  winds,  he  has  lit  the  gas,  and 
piled  the  fire  half-way  up  the  chimney  ;  though  when- 
ever fresh  coals  are  put  on,  a  great  gust  of  greenish 
smoke,  furiously  beaten  back  by  the  blast,  comes  pouring 
down  the  chimney,  and  suffocatingly  flooding  the  room. 

Belinda,  cold  as  she  undoubtedly  is,  is  not  near  the 
fire.  She  is  standing  by  the  window,  with  a  pot  of  paste 
and  some  strips  of  paper  in  her  numbed  hands,  pasting 
up  the  apertures  in  the  ill-seasoned  shrunk  window-frames, 
through  which  the  wind  comes  icily  whistling  and  piping. 
Now  and  again  she  appeals  for  directions  to  the  heap  of 
wraps  beside  the  hearth,  trying  to  still  her  chattering 
teeth  as  she  does  so,  to  keep  out  of  her  tone  the  intense 
dispiritedness  which  has  invaded  her  whole  being ;  not 
to  listen  to  the  ironical  demon  voice  that  whispers  in  her 
ear : 


BELINDA.  221 


"  This  is  the  honeymoon  ;  that  is  the  bridegroom  of 
your  own  choosing  !  " 

All  day — all  day  the  snow  swirls  past.  All  day  the 
sea — dimly  seen,  sometimes  seen  not  at  all — through  the 
white  hurricane  booms  and  thunders  on  the  shore.  The 
snow  cleaves  to  the  window-panes,  freezes  there,  darkens 
yet  more  the  dismal  room.  Not  a  soul  puts  nose  out  of 
doors  from  the  dark  dawn  to  the  soon-falling  night. 
When  at  length  Belinda  has  finished  her  painstaking 
pasting-up  of  the  windows,  she  asks  in  a  voice  of  would- 
be  cheerfulness  whether  the  blast  is  not  sensibly  lessened  ; 
but  receives  for  answer  a  melancholy  negative.  The 
whirlwind  from  under  the  door  is  such  as  to  laugh  to 
scorn  all  remedies  applied  elsewhere.  And  one  can  not 
paste  up  the  door. 

"But  one  may  put  sand-bags  beneath  it,"  suggests 
Belinda,  still  with  that  same  desperate  cheerfulness. 
"  They  may  have  sand-bags  in  the  house  ;  she  will  ring 
and  ask  ! " 

But  there  are  no  sand-bags,  and  the  landlady,  embit- 
tered like  every  one  else  by  the  weather,  tartly  replies 
that  such  a  thing  has  never  before  been  asked  for  in  her 
house  !  However,  Belinda  is  not  yet  at  the  end  of  her 
resources. 

"  I  think,"  she  says,  "  if  you  would  allow  me  to  fold 
up  all  the  newspapers  in  a  tight  roll,  it  might  keep  out 
some  of  the  wind ;  can  you  spare  them  all  ? — Pall  Mall, 
Spectator,  Academy,  Times  f  " 

Having  received  permission,  she  begins  to  turn  them 
over,  in  order  to  select  those  most  suitable  for  her  pur- 
pose ;  her  careless  eye  unintentionally  alighting  on  a 
word  here  and  there.  The  first  two  that  she  catches  are 
her  own  late  and  present  surnames.  "  Forth — Churchill." 
It  is  the  announcement  of  her  marriage  in  the  Daily 
News.  She  drops  it  as  if  it  had  bitten  her.  The  roll  of 


222  BELINDA. 


newspapers  is  about  as  effective  a  bulwark  against  the 
wind  as  a  child's  sand-rampart  is  against  the  sea.  But 
since  she  has  at  least  done  her  best,  Belinda  considers 
that  she  has  earned  the  right  to  sit  down  by  the  fire,  with 
her  fur-coat  hoisted  to  her  ears.  She  offers  to  read  aloud. 

"  I  am  obliged  to  you,"  replies  the  Professor  morosely, 
"but  in  the  present  condition  of  my  temperature,  it 
would  be  perfectly  impossible  for  me  to  concentrate  my 
attention." 

He  even  looks  rather  injured  when  she  herself 'takes 
up  a  book.  But  neither  can  she  concentrate  her  attention. 
Her  mind  strays  from  the  dreary  wonder  as  to  whether 
this  enormous  day  will  ever  end,  to  the  still  more  dreary 
wonder  why  she  should  wish  it  to  end,  seeing  that  it  will 
only  lead  to  another  like  it.  There  has  been  no  break 
since  breakfast-time,  with  the  exception  of  the  laying 
and  removing  of  their  early  dinner,  and  the  altercation 
about  the  sand-bags.  No  one  has  been  near  them,  not 
even  the  postman !  Doubtlessly  every  line  is  blocked, 
and  all  traffic  suspended.  The  dark  has  long  fallen  ;  if 
that  indeed  can  be  said  to  have  fallen  which  has  reigned 
more  or  less  all  day.  The  gas  has  been  turned  up  higher  ; 
the  thin  curtains  drawn,  with  many  futile  jerks  to  the 
rings  that  will  not  run ;  the  fire  is  new-built,  and  a  sort 
of  air  of  pseudo-evening-comfort  diffuses  itself.  Belinda's 
slow  pulse  begins  to  beat,  and  her  blood  to  circulate  a 
little  more  briskly.  It  quickens  its  pace  perceptibly, 
when  —  oh,  blessed  sight ! — the  lodging-house  servant 
enters  with  a  pile  of  letters  in  her  chappy  hand.  Thank 
God  !  the  line  is  not  blocked,  after  all !  These  are  the 
London  morning  letters  that  should  have  come  at  8  A.  M. 
She  snatches  at  them  eagerly.  They  can  bring  her  no 
great  good  news,  but  they  make  an  unspeakably  welcome 
interruption  to  the  uniform  dismalness  of  the  long  day. 
They  remove  the  terrible  feeling  of  isolation  from  all 


BELINDA.  223 


humankind,  which  hour  by  hour  has  been  gaining  ground 
upon  her.  There  is  a  pile  for  the  Professor ;  and  for  her 
a  large  fat  envelope,  bulging  with  inclosures,  and  di- 
rected in  Sarah's  hand.  She  draws  her  chair  more  closely 
to  the  hearth,  and  folds  her  soft  furs  warmlier  about  her. 
She  will  enjoy  her  letters  at  luxurious  leisure.  She  un- 
fastens the  cover,  and  the  inclosures  fall  out,  six  in  num- 
ber ;  a  note  from  Sarah  herself,  four  letters  addressed  in 
well-known  and  on  this  occasion  warmly-welcomed  fe- 
male handwritings,  and  one  in  an  unknown  male  hand. 
Is  it  unknown  f 


CHAPTER  IX. 

"Es  1st  eine  alte  Geschichte 
Doch  bleibt  sie  immer  neu, 
Und  wem  sie  just  passiret 
Dem  bricht  das  Herz  entzwei." 

AT  first  it  seems  so ;  but  as  she  looks  there  rises  in 
her  memory,  from  which  indeed  it  is  never  long  absent, 
the  image  of  another  letter,  to  whose  superscription  this 
one,  though  less  ill-written,  has  surely  a  strange  likeness. 

She  continues  to  look  at  it ;  a  fear  too  terrible  for 
words  rising  in  her  heart,  and  depriving  her  of  the  power 
of  opening  it.  The  fire  crackles  comfortably.  The  Pro- 
fessor turns  the  page  of  his  letter.  It  is  his  third  ;  and 
she  has  not  yet  opened  her  first. 

"  I  hope  you  have  good  news  from  home  ?  "  he  says 
politely. 

"I — I  believe  so,"  she  answers,  stammering.  "I  am 
not  quite  sure  yet." 

She  must  conquer  this  ridiculous  hesitation.  Prob- 
ably, certainly,  she  is  the  victim  of  hallucination — of  an 
accidental  resemblance.  The  likeness  is  no  doubt  con- 


224:  BELINDA. 


fined  to  the  address.  As  soon  as  she  sees  the  letter  itself, 
she  will  laugh  at  her  own  foolish  fancies.  She  tears  it 
open,  and  tremblingly  turns  to  the  signature. 

There  was  no  hallucination  —  no  accidental  resem- 
blance !  She  was  right,  "  David  Rivers."  For  the  first 
moment  she  is  drowned  in  a  rush  of  insensate  joy,  fol- 
lowed in  one  instant  by  such  an  anguish  of  horror  as 
makes  her  for  a  while  unconscious  of  everything  around 
her — everything  but  that  rending,  burning,  searing  pain. 

He  has  written  to  her  at  last !  What  has  he  to  say 
to  her  now  ?  To  congratulate  her  upon  her  marriage  ? 
He  might  have  spared  her  that  thrust !  She  will  not 
read  it !  She  will  burn  it  unread  ! — by-and-by — not  now  ! 
— when  she  can  do  it  unobserved. 

Her  shaking  fingers  refold  the  paper,  hide  it  on  her 
lap  beneath  the  fur,  and  take  up  another  letter — Sarah's. 
She  goes  straight  through  it,  nor  till  reaching  the  last 
sentence  does  she  discover  that  not  one  word  of  its  con- 
tents has  found  entry  to  her  brain.  It  is  no  use  !  That 
letter  must  be  read.  It  burns  her  knee  as  it  lies  on  it. 
It  is  burning,  burning  all  through  her.  It  is  better  to 
know  the  worst !  But  to  read  it  here  under  her  husband's 
eyes — her  husband's  ! 

She  casts  at  him  one  desperate  look,  and  then,  sud- 
denly rising,  flies  out  of  the  room.  He  may  call  after 
her — she  thinks  that  he  does  so — but  she  makes  no  kind 
of  answer.  Up  the  draughty  stairs  she  flies  into  her  bed- 
room ;  turning  the  key  in  the  lock,  as  she  shuts  the  door 
behind  her.  The  Professor,  relenting,  has  given  her  leave 
to  have  a  fire  there  ;  but  the  chimney  smokes  so  furiously 
that  it  has  had  to  be  long  ago  let  out.  The  room  is 
piercingly,  savagely,  truculently  cold  ;  but  though  she 
has  been  thinking  of  the  cold  all  day,  she  is  now  not 
aware  of  it.  How  can  one  be  cold  with  a  red-hot  iron  in 
one's  heart  ? 


BELINDA.  225 


In  a  moment  she  has  turned  up  the  gas  and  lit  the 
candles.  It  is  well  to  have  plenty  of  light  by  which  to 
read  one's  death-warrant.  But  she  can  not  spare  time  to 
sit  down.  A  frantic  haste  to  possess  the  contents  of  that 
letter  which,  five  minutes  ago,  she  had  thought  herself 
capable  of  burning  unread,  has  laid  hold  of  all  her  trem- 
bling being. 

Standing,  she  reads  it  ;  and  this  is  what  she  reads  : 

"  5  PARADISE  Row,  MILNTHORPE, 
"  YORKSHIRE, 

"January  10th." 

January  10th !  Why,  that  was  her  wedding-day ! 
It  is  not  to  congratulate  her  upon  her  marriage,  then  ;  he 
could  not  have  known  it ! 

"  Thank  God  !  I  may  write  to  you  at  last,  though  I 
do  not  suppose  that  it  will  be  much  good  even  now,  as  I 
am  so  mad  with  joy  that  I  doubt  whether  I  shall  be  able 
to  make  any  sense  of  it.  You  will  have  understood — you 
always  understand  everything — what  has  kept  me  from 
you  hitherto.  Of  course  you  heard,  as  everybody  did,  of 
the  bankruptcy  that  preceded  and  caused  my  poor  father's 
death.  Whatever  you  may  have  heard,  do  not  for  a  mo- 
ment believe  that  he  was  to  blame  for  it.  I  am  such  a 
bad  hand  at  writing,  that  I  can  explain  to  you  better 
when  we  meet ;  but  I  can  not  bear  you  to  remain  in  such 
an  error  for  a  moment  longer  than  I  can  help.  His  ruin 
was  caused  by  a  sudden  and  most  unexpected  rise  in  iron, 
just  after  he  had  undertaken  an  enormous  contract  to  de- 
liver many  thousand  tons  of  iron  railings  in  America  at 
a  low  price.  It  was  a  misfortune  that  might  have  hap- 
pened to  any  one,  however  long-sighted  and  cautious. 
You  know  what  he  was  to  me  :  I  have  often  thought 
since  of  how  I  must  have  bored  you  bragging  about  him. 
You  may  think  what  that  home-coming  was  to  me  ! 


226  BELINDA. 


Well,  if  there  had  been  time  for  it,  I  think  I  should  have 
given  in  altogether  then.  Happily  for  me  there  was  not. 
If  I  broke  down,  where  would  mother  and  the  young  ones 
be  ?  No  sooner  was  the  funeral  over  than  we  discovered 
that  the  smash  was  so  complete  that,  at  all  events  until  the 
affairs  could  be  wound  up — a  matter  probably  of  several 
years — there  would  be  scarcely  enough  for  mother  to  keep 
body  and  soul  together.  The  boys  must  be  educated ; 
three  of  them  quite  little  chaps.  There  was  nothing  for 
it  but  to  give  up  whatever  hopes  one  had  of  one's  own  ! 
God  alone  knows  whether  or  not  that  »was  a  wrench.  We 
took  a  little  house  in  a  dirty  back  street  in  Milnthorpe — 
I  am  writing  in  it  now  ;  but  to-day  it  looks  to  me  like  a 
palace.  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  obtain  a  clerkship  in 
a  house,  one  of  the  partners  in  which  had  been  an  early 
friend  of  my  father's  ;  a  clerkship  which,  as  I  was  always 
very  bad  at  quill-driving,  and  the  confinement,  to  which 
I  had  not  been  used,  knocked  me  up,  I  soon  exchanged 
for  a  place  in  the  works.  We  got  on  as  well  as  we  could  : 
mother  has  infinite  pluck,  and  the  young  ones  did  their 
best.  Sometimes  I  thought  of  writing  to  you.  If  you 
had  ever  answered  a  note  I  scrawled  to  you  just  before  I 
left  Dresden,  I  think  I  should  have  done  so  ;  but  you  did 
not  :  of  course  you  were  right.  For  eighteen  months  I 
worked  without  a  holiday.  Not  having  been  brought  up 
to  it,  I  was  at  such  a  disadvantage  with  the  other  men. 
I  scraped  along  from  day  to  day,  not  daring  to  look 
much  ahead,  until,  two  posts  ago,  we  received  a  letter  from 
the  lawyer  of  an  old  and  distant  connection  of  ours,  of 
whom  we  knew  little,  and  expected  less,  to  say  that  he 
was  dead,  and  had  left  £30,000  by  will,  to  be  divided 
among  us.  This  of  course  makes  a  very  fair  provision 
for  mother  and  the  children,  and  leaves  my  arms  free  to 
work  for  myself.  You  must  decide  whether  they  are  to 
work  for  you  too.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  I  can  not  write 


BELINDA.  227 


sense?  May  I  come?  When  may  I  come?  Do  not 
keep  me  waiting  long,  or  I  shall  come  without  leave. 
Darling !  darling  !  darling  !  I  suppose  that  I  have  no 
right  to  call  you  that,  but  do  not  be  angry  ;  I  did  not 
write  it !  it  wrote  itself,  and  I  can  not  scratch  it  out,  it 
looks  so  pretty  written  !  After  twenty  months,  one 
might  be  afraid  that  many  women  had  forgotten  one  ; 
but  you  are  not  of  those  that  forget !  Love  !  have  you 
forgotten  Wesenstein  ? 

"DAVID  RIVEES." 

She  has  read  it  through,  without  a  break  or  a  pause, 
to  the  signature.  There  is  no  more,  but  yet  she  still 
stands  looking  at  it.  For  one  all-happy  moment  the 
present  is  dead  to  her  ;  only  the  past  wholly  lives.  Has 
she  forgotten  Wesenstein  ?  She  smiles  rosily  ;  such  a 
smile  as  has  scarcely  been  seen  to  visit  her  face  since  that 
very  Wesenstein  day.  "  Darling  !  darling  !  darling  !  " 
She  counts  them.  There  are  three.  He  says  that  they 
look  pretty  written.  He  is  right :  they  have  a  pretty 
look. 

A  slight  noise  breaks  her  trance.  It  is  only  the  Pro- 
fessor poking  the  fire  in  the  sitting-room  below  ;  a  sound 
plainly  audible  through  the  thin  flooring.  But  if  it  had 
been  the  great  Trump  of  Doom,  it  could  not  have  more 
effectually  blared  and  shivered  away  her  visions.  There 
is  a  growing  wildness  in  her  eyes,  as  they  retrace  the  sen- 
tences of  the  just-read  letter.  It  is  a  good  letter.  No 
woman  need  wish  to  have  an  honester  or  a  fonder  one 
from  her  own  true  love.  It  has  only  the  one  trifling 
drawback  of  having  come  just  three  days  too  late.  It  is 
scarcely  tactful  to  have  thrust  itself  thus  untimely  be- 
tween her  and  the  husband  of  her  choice  ! 

"  It  is  my  own  choice,"  she  says ;  "  there  lies  the 
point  of  the  joke  ! "  and  she  laughs  aloud.  Something 


228  BELINDA. 


in  the  sound  of  her  own  laugh  frightens  her.     "  Am  I 
going  mad  ?  "  she  asks  herself. 

As  she  speaks,  she  staggers  to  the  window,  and  throws 
up  the  sash  ;  whether — even  in  this  ice-house  atmosphere 
— gasping  for  yet  more  air,  or  driven  by  some  darker  im- 
pulse. For  the  moment  the  hurricane  has  lulled.  Out- 
side it  is  all  white  with  snow  and  moonshine  :  the  moon 
herself  not  absolutely  visible,  too  low  to  cut  even  her  ac- 
customed track  upon  the  silvered  sea,  betrayed  only  by 
the  sudden  pale  flash  that  each  loud  wave  gives  in  'turn- 
ing over  on  the  strand.  Ceaselessly,  as  it  has  been  snow- 
ing all  day,  the  devilish  wind  has  swept  the  pavement 
clean  and  bare.  She  can  see  the  flagstones'  fierce  wet 
shine  immediately  beneath  her.  How  hard  they  look  ! 
and  at  what  a  distance  below  her  !  One  step  from  that 
easily  accessible  sill  and  she  will  be  forever  healed  of 
that  pain,  than  which  none  worse  ever  made  dying  man 
in  deadly  straits  call  upon  death  to  set  him  free.  But 
Death,  the  gentle  genius  with  the  reversed  torch  laying 
his  soft  hand,  coolly  liberating,  on  the  over- weary  heart, 
is  not  akin  to  the  grisly  gory  murderous  phantom  that 
she  in  her  misery  invokes.  For  that  dread  step  even  her 
perfect  woe  has  not  yet  ripened  her.  She  shivers  moan- 
ing back  from  the  razor-edged  outer  air,  and  shuts  the 
window.  She  sits  down  by  the  table,  and  spreading  out 
the  letter  before  her,  reads  it  deliberately  through  again. 
Not  a  tear  dims  her  dry  eye.  They  say  that  the  worst 
of  a  thunder-storm  is  past  when  the  rain  comes.  The 
worst  of  a  human  sorrow  is  past  when  the  tear-rain 
comes.  But  Belinda's  grief  is  far  indeed  from  having 
reached  that  better  stage.  What  would  she  not  give  for 
a  few  tears,  or  that  this  hideous  keenness  of  conscious- 
ness might  melt  away  blurred  into  a  merciful  swoon  ! 
But  she  is  as  far  from  the  one  relief  as  the  other.  If  it 
had  been  written  one  day  earlier  !  If  she  had  yielded  to 


BELINDA.  229 


Sarah's  passionate  persuasions  to  delay  her  marriage  for 
one  month  !  If — if  !  There  are  a  hundred  ifs  ;  any  one 
of  which  might  have  opened  heaven  to  her  !  But  not 
one  of  them  did. 

"  It  is  my  own  choice  ! "  she  keeps  repeating,  half 
aloud,  and  then  comes  again  that  terrible  impulse  to  laugh 
loudly  at  the  ghastly  irony  of  it !  the  mirth  of  it !  Her 
own  choice  to  be  sitting  here  alone  and  marrow-chilled — 
chilled,  yet  with  a  red-hot  sword  slowly  turning  and  turn- 
ing in  her  heart ;  afraid  even  to  groan  aloud,  lest  she 
should  be  overheard,  instead  of — 

But  the  reverse  of  that  picture  she  dare  not  face. 
That  is  the  road  that  lies  straight  to  madness.  Her  eye 
wanders  wildly  yet  again  over  the  page.  Even  it,  in 
cruelty,  seems  always  to  fasten  on  the  fondest  phrases  : 

"  I  am  so  mad  with  joy  !  "  "  Is  it  any  wonder  that  I 
can  not  write  sense  ?  " 

As  she  looks  at  the  words,  written  in  such  pure,  glad, 
good  faith,  but  that  seem  to  stare  back  at  her  now  in 
grinning  mockery,  a  great  dry  sob  rocks  her  whole  body 
to  and  fro.  The  pity,  lavished  hitherto  on  herself  alone, 
now  changes  its  current,  and  pours  in  bitterest  flood  over 
him.  "  Mad  with  joy !  "  until  when  ?  Until  casually 
taking  up  the  newspaper,  he  reads  that  on  the  10th  of 
January,  James  Forth,  Professor  of  Etruscan  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Oxbridge,  took  to  wife  at  St.  Jude's  Church, 

Street,  Mayfair,  Belinda,  elder  daughter  of  the  late 

John  Churchill,  Esq.,  of  Churchill  Park,  Loamshire.  He 
will  not  believe  it  !  He  will  think  that  some  one  has  insert- 
ed it  as  joke.  In  humiliating  torrent,  and  with  a  reten- 
tiveness  of  memory,  of  which  she  had  not  believed  herself 
capable,  there  rushes  back  into  her  mind  the  stream  of 
hold-cheap  jests  and  jeers  and  quips,  in  which  they  had 
united  the  forces  of  their  joint  wits,  at  the  expense  of 
him  who  is  now  her  husband  ;  whom  at  this  moment  she 


230  BELINDA. 


hears  shoveling  coal  on  the  fire  in  the  room  beneath 
her.  Upon  no  one's  testimony  but  her  own,  will  Rivers 
believe  it.  And  what  words  can  she  find  in  which  to  tell 
him  ?  Again  that  fierce  sobbing  shakes  her  from  head  to 
foot ;  but  she  masters  it.  For  a  few  moments  she  sits  in 
motionless,  miserable  thinking.  Then  apparently  an  idea 
strikes  her  :  for  she  rises,  and  taking  the  candle  in  her 
hand,  drags  herself  to  the  looking-glass.  For  a  moment 
she  peers  haggardly  into  it.  At  all  events  her  face  is  not 
disfigured  by  tears  ;  and  the  only  person  to  whose -scru- 
tiny it  will  be  subjected  is  no  very  nice  observer  of  its 
variations. 

Apparently  she  is  satisfied  with  the  result  of  her  con- 
sultation, for  she  moves  to  the  door,  and  unlocking  and 
opening  it,  passes  down-stairs  and  re-enters  the  sitting- 
room. 

Mr.  Forth  is  in  exactly  the  same  posture  as  that  in 
which  she  had  left  him,  except  that,  having  finished  his 
letters,  he  has  been  able  again  completely  to  entomb  him- 
self— hands  and  all — in  his  wraps  ;  out  of  which  only  an 
elderly  face  —  its  wrinkles  plowed  deeper  by  cold  and 
crabbedness — now  peeps. 

"  Where  have  you  been  ?  What  have  you  been  doing 
all  this  time  ?  "  he  inquires  captiously. 

"  I  have  been  in  my  room." 

She  had  dreaded  lest  there  may  be  something  so  un- 
usual in  the  sound  of  her  voice  that  he  may  turn  round 
and  look  at  her.  But  no  !  he  keeps  his  attitude  of  peev- 
ish crouching  over  the  hearth. 

"  I  hope  that  the  fire  was  burning  well,"  he  says  anx- 
iously. "  If  the  grate  is  of  the  same  construction  as  this 
one,  it  will  require  constant  attention." 

"  I — I — do  not  think  that  it  was  burning  at  all,"  re- 
plies Belinda  uncertainly. 

Till  this  moment  it  has  never  struck  her  how  many 


BELINDA.  231 


degrees  of  frost  have  been  adding  physical  to  her  mental 
suffering. 

"  Not  burning  ?     Not  lit  ?  " 

In  a  moment  he  has  leaped  to  the  bell  and  violently 
rung  it ;  but  as  Maria's  movements  in  responding  to  it 
are  marked  by  no  greater  celerity  than  usual,  there  is 
time  for  the  whole  of  the  following  little  dialogue  before 
her  arrival : 

"  Have  you  been  pasting  up  the  windows  ?  If  not,  I 
am  at  a  loss  to  conceive  what  can  have  induced  you  to 
spend  the  best  part  of  an  hour  in  such  an  atmosphere." 

"  I — I — have  not  pasted  them  up  ;  I  will  if  you  like." 

"  You  have  left  the  door  open." 

"  I  am  very  sorry  ;  I  will  shut  it." 

"  What  are  you  doing  over  there  ?  Why  do  not  you 
come  and  sit  down  ?  " 

"  I — I — am  looking  for  the  Daily  News  !  " 

"  The  Daily  News  I  What  do  you  want  with  the 
Daily  News  f  Is  it  possible  that  you  have  already  for- 
gotten that  you  made  a  roll  out  of  all  the  newspapers  to 
fill  the  aperture  under  the  door  ?  not " — ungratefully — 
"that  it  has  been  of  any  use." 

"  I  did  not  take  the  Daily  News  ;  I  laid  it  aside." 

She  does  not  explain  why  she  laid  it  aside. 

"What  do  you  want  with  the  Daily  News?"  fret- 
fully, fidgeted  by  her  movements. 

She  is  on  her  knees  before  the  cupboard  to  which  her 
husband  had  planned  to  confide  the  custody  of  his  bacon, 
and  from  which  she  has  been  unable  wholly  to  exclude 
jam-pots  and  pickle-jars.  She  had  forgotten  that  they 
were  there,  and  the  sight  of  them — unlikely  as  it  would 
seem  that  such  poor  trifles  could  either  add  to  or  take 
aught  from  the  sum  of  so  great  a  grief — the  sight  of 
them  seems  to  be  the  last  drop  that  brims  her  cup.  In 
after-life  it  seems  to  her  as  if  nothing  had  brought  her 


232  BELINDA. 


so  near  self-destruction  as  those  pickle-pots  !  What  does 
she  want  with  the  Daily  News?  A  desperate  impulse 
seizes  her.  She  will  tell  him. 

"  I  want  it  in  order  to  cut  out  the  advertisement  of 
our  marriage,  to  send  to — " 

She  pauses.  The  name  sticks  in  her  throat.  With 
the  best  will  in  the  world,  she  can  not  pronounce  it. 

"  To  my  mother  ?  "  suggests  the  Professor,  filling  up 
the  blank  conjecturally.  "  I  have  already  done  so." 

Belinda  laughs  a  laugh  like  the  one  that  had  made  her 
question  her  own  sanity  up-stairs. 

"  No,  not  to  your  mother  ;  to — to — an — acquaintance 
of  my  own  ! " 

She  has  found  the  journal  now — found  it  in  the  very 
spot  to  which  she  herself  had — as  one  does — uncon- 
sciously tidied  it  away.  In  an  instant,  as  if  it  were 
printed  in  her  own  red  blood,  her  eye  has  flashed  upon 
the  announcement ;  picked  it  out  from  the  long  list.  Her 
work-basket,  in  which  lie  the  scissors  with  which  she 
must  cut  it  out,  lies  on  the  table  at  her  husband's  elbow. 
She  stands  quietly  beside  him,  snipping,  snipping  deli- 
cately, in  the  gaslight.  There  must  be  no  jagged  edges  ; 
nothing  that  tells  of  emotion — nothing  that  will  betray 
to  him  to  whom  it  is  to  be  sent  that  each  cut  of  those  fine, 
sharp  scissors  was  into  her  own  heart. 

"  I  can  not  think  what  is  the  use  of  occupying  your- 
self about  it  to-night ! "  says  her  husband,  venting  the  ill- 
humor  engendered  by  Maria's  tardiness  in  replying  to  his 
spells,  upon  the  nearest  object — as  many  better  men  than 
he  have  done  before  him.  "The  country  post  is  long 
gone.  Probably  all  the  lines  are  blocked — " 

"I  know  !  I  know  !  "  interrupts  she  harshly  ;  "but  I 
had  rather  get  it  done  to-night !  to-morrow  I — I — may 
have  forgotten ! " 


BELINDA.  233 


She  is  back  in  her  own  room  again,  having  taken  the 
opportunity  to  slip  out  unquestioned,  afforded  by  Maria's 
appearance  at  last — Maria  in  that  reluctant,  grudging 
humor  with  which  she  usually  offers  services,  cheered  by 
no  hope  of  final  largess ;  a  hope  that  the  Professor  has 
seen  fit,  immediately  upon  his  arrival,  to  extirpate.  Be- 
linda is  in  her  room  again  alone  ;  but,  alone  and  undis- 
turbed, she  knows  that  she  can  not  long  remain,  but  that 
she  will  be  speedily  followed  by  Maria  with  coal-box  and 
shavings  to  relight  the  extinct  fire.  What  she  has  to 
do,  must  be  done  quickly.  She  opens  her  writing-case  ; 
takes  out  envelope  and  paper  ;  directs  the  first,  and  then 
writes  on  the  latter,  in  a  large,  painstaking,  legible  hand, 
"  From  Belinda  Forth."  It  has  not  taken  one  minute  in 
the  doing  :  Maria's  pursuing  foot  is  not  yet  heard  : 
happily  she  will  be  as  slow  as  she  can.  Belinda  blots  it 
carefully ;  then,  after  steadfastly  and  with  perfect  tear- 
lessness  considering  her  own  handiwork  for  the  space  of 
a  moment,  she  lifts  the  paper  to  her  dry  lips,  and  lays  a 
solemn  good-by  kiss  upon  her  own  name  ;  upon  the  "  Be- 
linda," that  is,  carefully  avoiding  the  "  Forth."  She  has 
no  manner  of  doubt  that  he  will  find  it  there  :  and  who 
can  grudge  them  such  a  parting  embrace  ? 

Then,  without  any  further  delay,  she  folds  the  paper,  * 
inserts  in  it  the  advertisement,  closes  and  stamps  the 
envelope.  It  is  done  !  accomplished  !  and  now  that  it  is 
so,  an  intense,  restless  craving  seizes  her,  that  it  should  be 
on  its  journey.  In  any  case,  it  can  not  leave  Folkestone 
to-night  ;  but  at  least  she  might  do  her  part.  It  might 
be  committed  to  the  post.  The  thought  of  it  lying  here 
all  night ;  meeting  her  again  in  the  morning — God  above 
her  !  what  will  that  morning  waking  be  ! — is  more  than 
she  can  face.  But  to  whom  can  she  confide  it?  To 
Maria  ?  That  high-spirited  person  would  flatly  refuse  to 
brave  the  elements  on  such  a  night ;  and  neither  man  nor 


234:  BELINDA. 


mouse  could  blame  her.  To  that  grimy  Gibeonite — the 
boot  and  shoe  boy?  He  would  infallibly  commit  it  to 
his  breeches-pocket,  and  dismiss  it  from  his  mind.  Why 
should  not  she  take  it  herself  ?  There  is  a  pillar-post  not 
twenty  yards  from  their  door.  The  thought  has  no 
sooner  crossed  her  mind  than  it  is  half-way  toward  ac- 
complishment. 

In  a  moment  she  has  taken  hat  and  additional  furs 
from  the  wardrobe  ;  has  fastened  them  on  as  quickly  as 
her  trembling  fingers  will  let  her,  and  has  stolen  down- 
stairs, creeping  on  tiptoe  past  the  sitting-room  door  ;  a 
needless  caution,  for  the  Professor,  though  not  at  all 
deaf,  has  no  longer  that  fineness  of  hearing  which  is 
spared  to  few  of  us  after  forty.  Neither  does  she,  as 
she  feared  she  would,  meet  Maria  and  the  coal-box.  The 
hall-door  is  not  locked,  and  opens  easily  ;  rather  too  easi- 
ly indeed,  for  no  sooner  is  it  unlatched  than  a  force  as  of 
ten  thousand  Titans  violently  pushing,  dashes  it  back.  It 
is  all  that  she  can  do,  after  repeated  efforts,  and  putting 
forth  her  whole  strength,  to  shut  it  behind  her.  When 
she  at  length  succeeds,  it  closes  with  a  bang  that — as  she 
is  aware  by  former  experience — makes  every  floor  leap. 

Again  she  laughs  out  loud.  The  temporary  moonlit 
•  lull  is  over  ;  the  cloud-rack  has  sponged  out  moon  and 
sea.  The  great  hurricane  is  awake  and  in  wrath  again. 
There  seems  to  be  nothing  in  all  creation  but  himself 
and  his  terribler  snow-sister.  The  air  is  so  full  of  the 
white  flurry  —  close  and  fine  as  flour  —  that  it  makes 
breathing  difficult.  Belinda  gasps.  She  has  to  stand 
still  for  a  moment,  that  her  feet  may  grasp  firm  hold  of 
the  ground,  else  will  the  northeaster,  in  one  of  its  furi- 
ous freaks,  take  her  bodily  off  them.  Then  she  staggers 
resolutely  on  again  ;  a  lonely  fighter  through  the  raging 
winter  night.  Of  every  slightest  lull  she  takes  advan- 
tage to  quicken  her  pace.  Now  and  again  she  turns  her 


BELINDA.  235 


back  upon  the  suffocating  snow  in  order  to  breathe.  But 
not  for  one  moment  does  she  repent  of  having  come.  She 
feels  no  hostility  toward,  no  fear  of,  the  dreadful  ele- 
ments. Is  not  she  as  desperate  as  they  ?  The  hand-to- 
hand  fight  with  them  does  her  good.  It  seems  to  lift 
some  of  the  lead  from  her  brain ;  to  set  further  away 
from  her  that  madness  that  had  loomed  so  near.  But  the 
twenty  yards  seem  more  like  twenty  miles. 

She  has  reached  the  pillar-post  at  last — an  opportune 
momentary  lifting  of  the  storm  revealing  to  her  its  snow- 
whitened  red — has  found  the  aperture,  and  has  dropped 
into  it  the  letter  so  carefully,  painstakingly  kept  dry  be- 
neath her  cloak.  Yes  !  it  is  gone  !  gone  past  recall !  as 
past  recall  as  the  wood  at  Wesenstein  ;  as  the  friend  on 
whose  coffin  we  have  seen  fall  the  first  cruel  spadeful  of 
earth.  But  of  this  she  has  no  time  to  think.  A  fresh 
frenzy  of  the  tornado  obliges  her  to  cling  half -stunned  to 
the  pillar  ;  and  the  moment  that  she  looses  her  hold,  the 
snow-wind  takes  her  in  its  fearful  hands  and  hurls  her 
back  along  the  Leas. 

For  one  dread  moment  it  seems  to  her  that  it  is  about 
to  hurl  her  far  away  over  the  cliff  into  the  awful  lap  of 
the  bellowing  waves  that,  even  now,  she  can  hear  in  the 
darkness  savagely  tearing  at  the  great  hewn  stones  of 
the  quay.  That  one  instant  reveals  to  her  that  the  life 
she  had  thought  herself  capable  of  throwing  away,  is  still 
sweet. 

By  a  great  effort  her  feet  recover  their  hold  of  the 
ground  which  has  fled  from  beneath  them  ;  but  not  until 
she  has  been  swept  far  past  the  house  to  which  she  is 
struggling  to  return.  Battling,  blinded,  and  dizzy  ;  be- 
wildered by  the  darkness,  and  by  the  hopeless  uniformity 
of  the  row  of  buildings,  it  is  long  before,  groping  for  the 
door  that  continually  eludes  her,  she  at  length  finds  it ; 
at  length  she  finds  herself  within  its  shelter. 


236  BELINDA. 


Maria  does  not  recognize  her  at  first,  so  battered  and 
snow-covered  is  she  ;  but  Belinda  pays  no  heed  to  her 
expressions  of  incredulous  astonishment.  It  is  possible 
that  she  may  be  so  deafened  by  the  elemental  roar  as  not 
to  hear  them. 

Without  much  consciousness  of  how  the  intervening 
stair-flights  were  climbed,  she  finds  herself  again  in  her 
room.  The  gas  is  still  turned  high  up,  as  she  had  left  it. 
Maria  has  at  length  relit  the  fire  ;  there  is  plenty  of  light 
for  her  to  see  her  bridal  chamber  by.  Plenty  of  light, 
too,  to  see  the  blotting-pad  on  which  she  had  so  lately 
blotted  the  three  words  of  her  billet  de  faire  part. 

She  takes  it  up,  and  holds  it  to  the  looking-glass. 
How  plainly  the  three  words  come  out  ;  not  a  letter,  not 
a  stroke  missed  ! 

" From  Belinda  Forth"  She  mutters  them  over  and 
over  under  her  breath.  "  From  Belinda  Forth  !  "  "  From 
Belinda  Forth  !  " 

She  is  roused  by  a  voice  calling  from  below  : 

"Belinda!  Belinda!" 

It  is  her  husband.  Let  him  call  !  The  summons  is 
repeated  with  more  stress  and  urgency  : 

"  Belinda  !  Belinda  !  " 

Is  not  it  the  voice  which  will  go  on  calling  "  Belin- 
da !  "  through  life  ?  Is  not  it  the  voice  to  which  she  her- 
self has  given  the  right  to  call  Belinda  ;  to  command  Be- 
linda ;  to  chide  Belinda  ;  immeasurably  worst  of  all,  to 
caress  Belinda  ?  Of  what  use,  then,  to  break  out  thus 
early  into  senseless,  bootless  revolt  ?  She  hastily  shakes 
the  powdery  snow  from  her  clothes,  drags  off  her  soaked 
shoes,  twists  afresh  her  wet  and  streaming  hair,  and  goes 
decently  and  orderly  down  again  ;  decently  and  orderly 
to  all  appearance,  for  who  can  see  the  wheels  that  are 
whirring  in  her  head,  and  the  flashes  of  uneasy  light  be- 
fore her  eyes  ? 


BELINDA.  237 


She  finds  her  bridegroom  in  his  former  attitude  ;  it 
seems  to  her  as  if  she  could  have  better  borne  him  and  it, 
if  he  had  changed  his  position  ever  so  little.  But  no  !  he 
is  still  mumping,  round-backed,  over  the  fire. 

"  I  called  repeatedly,"  he  says,  with  a  not  altogether 
blamable  irritation  ;  "  is  it  possible  that  you  did  not  hear 
me?" 

There  is  no  answer,  thew  heels  in  her  head  are  going 
so  fast. 

"  Where  have  you  been  ?  what  have  you  been  doing  ?  " 

"  I  have  been  out." 

"  Out !    You  must  be  a  madwoman  !  " 

"  So  I  sometimes  say  to  myself,"  replies  she  very  dis- 
tinctly, and  looking  straight  at  him  as  she  speaks. 

"  And  may  I  ask,"  continues  he  sarcastically,  "  what 
induced  you  to  choose  this  peculiarly  tempting  evening 
for  a  stroll  ?  " 

"  I  went  to  post  my  letter." 

"Pshaw!" 

She  has  taken  her  former  seat,  opposite  to  him.  The 
northeaster's  lash  has  whipped  up  a  royal  red  into  her 
cheeks,  usually  so  far  too  pale. 

"  There  is  no  accounting  for  taste,"  she  says  slowly  ; 
"  mine  has  often  been  blamed.  You,  at  least,  have  no 
right  to  complain  of  it ;  shall  I  read  to  you  ?  " 

As  she  speaks,  she  takes  up  the  book  laid  down  over- 
night, and  without  further  permission  launches  into  the 
first  paragraph  she  sees.  She  has  been  conscious,  on 
coming  into  the  now  really  warm  room  out  of  the  frozen, 
stinging  air,  of  an  odd  sensation  in  her  head.  It  feels 
light  and  swimming,  but  she  reads  on.  Now  and  then 
the  type  waves  up  and  down  before  her  like  the  furrows 
of  a  plowed  field  ;  but  she  reads  on.  The  matter  of  the 
book  and  the  matter  of  her  thoughts  are  woven  hopeless, 
ly  together  like  warp  and  woof,  but  she  reads  on  : 


238  BELINDA. 


" '  If  it  could  be  demonstrated  that  any  complex  organ 
existed  which  could  not  possibly  have  been  formed  by 
numerous  successive  slight  modifications '  (in  how  many 
years  am  I  likely  to  die  .^),  ( my  theory  would  absolutely 
break  down.  But  I  can  find  out  no  such  case.  No 
doubt  many  organs  exist  of  which '  (can  the  worm  that 
never  dies  sting  more  sharply  than  this  f)  c  we  do  riot 
know  the  transitional  grades.5  " 

How  the  print  is  jigging  and  bowing !  but  it  will 
come  straight  and  still  again  just  now.  She  reads  on. 

"  Pray  repeat  that  last  paragraph  ;  I  am  unable  to  fol- 
low you  ;  you  are  making  nonsense  of  it !  " 

But,  instead  of  complying,  Belinda  tumbles  the  vol- 
ume noisily  down  into  the  fender,  and  falls  off  her  chair 
after  it.  Her  wish  is  fulfilled  :  she  has  fainted  ! 


PERIOD    III. 

"  Love  goes  toward  love  as  schoolboys  from  their  books ; 
But  love  from  love  toward  school  with  heavy  looks." 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  winter,  with  its  terrible  stress  and  fury,  is  over 
and  past.  People  sitting  in  blooming  spring  gardens  or 
by  widely-opened  windows,  talk  comfortably,  with  lips 
no  longer  chapped,  of  the  great  snow-storm,  and  compare 
notes  as  to  the  amount  of  personal  inconvenience  and  dis- 
comfort to  which  it  had  exposed  them.  Anecdotes  of 
the  awful  night  spent  in  snow-stopped  trains  have  formed 
the  convenient  opening  for  many  a  dinner-talk  ;  the  anxi- 
ety on  the  part  of  each  interlocutor  to  prove  that  he  or 
she  had  suffered  more  than  the  other,  leading  to  intimacy 
before  soup  is  well  over.  Of  its  ferocity  and  its  devil- 
work  few  overt  traces  now  remain,  except  killed  laurel- 
bushes  and  rare  thrushes.  Out  of  how  many  sweet  little 
throats  full  of  music  has  it  pinched  the  tender  life  !  But 
over  its  wrecks  the  sea  rolls  ;  and  in  the  bottomless  sea 
of  mothers'  hearts,  its  drowned  sailors  lie  buried.  And 
does  the  analogy  between  the  material  and  the  spiritual 
world  hold  good  ?  Does  the  sea  of  oblivion  smoothly 
heave,  and  largely  sweep  above  the  soul  that  went  down 
on  that  dread  night  ?  Does  no  spar  pierce  the  flood  to 
show  where  that  good  ship  foundered  ? 


24:0  BELINDA. 


It  would  be  the  opinion  of  outsiders,  who  have  not 
visited  Oxbridge — if  they  had  formed  an  opinion  at  all 
upon  the  subject,  and  were  asked  for  it — that  the  inhab- 
itants of  that  university  town  dwell  in  gray  and  ancient 
houses,  time-colored,  and  with  flavors  of  old  learning 
still  hanging  about  their  massy  roof -trees.  In  point  of 
fact,  their  lives  are  passed  for  the  most  part  in  flippant 
spick  and  span  villas  and  villakins,  each  with  its  half- 
acre  of  tennis-ground  and  double  daisies,  all  so  new  that 
scarcely  any  one  has  had  time  to  die  there,  though  nu- 
merous people  have  taken  leave  to  be  born  there,  and 
forming  in  their  ensemble  an  ugly,  irrelevant,  healthy 
suburb,  that  would  not  disgrace  a  cotton  city  of  to-day. 

It  is  mid-May,  and  the  hour  is  one  of  the  afternoon 
ones  ;  an  hour  at  which  luncheon  is  already  forgotten, 
though  tea  still  smiles  not  near.  Along  the  shining  riv- 
er, a  mile  away,  eight  oars,  four  oars,  skiffs  are  flashing. 
Scores  of  happy  boys  are  tearing  down  the  path  along- 
side, keeping  company  with  their  boats,  exhorting,  ad- 
monishing, shouting  themselves  hoarse.  But  their  noise, 
though  strong  are  their  young  lungs,  does  not  reach  in 
faintest  echoes  to  the  quiet  drawing-room,  where  the  as 
quiet  lady  sits,  head  on  lily  hand,  beside  the  window, 
staring  out  at  her  plot  of  forget-me-nots  and  the  gold 
shower  of  her  two  laburnum-trees. 

Warm  as  the  day  is,  a  fire  burns  on  the  hearth  ;  a  fire 
whose  inconvenient  heat  Belinda  is  languidly  trying  to 
counteract  by  the  agency  of  the  fan,  slowly  waving  in  her 
unoccupied  hand.  It  is  too  hot  even  for  Slutty,  who, 
shortly  panting  in  her  sleep,  lies  cast  on  her  fat  side  in  a 
cool  corner.  Upon  Slutty's  figure,  an  academic  life,  and 
the  total  absence  of  the  thinning  emotion  of  envy,  and  of 
the  bad  but  emaciating  passion  of  jealousy  (an  absence 
caused  by  the  fact  of  her  being  sole  dog  of  the  establish- 
ment, and  having  no  longer  any  cause  for  suffering  from 


BELINDA. 


Punch's  tinselly  accomplishments)  has  begun  to  tell.  She 
could  not  well  look  stouter  or  less  intellectual  if  she  were 
one  of  the  old  Fellows  of  St.  Bridget's. 

When  last  we  saw  Belinda,  she  was  lying  groveling 
among  cinders  and  fire-irons  in  a  fender.  Now  she  is  sit- 
ting placid  and  upright  on  a  window-seat.  Is  the  change 
that  has  taken  place  in  her  soul's  attitude  as  much  to  her 
advantage  as  that  which  has  effected  itself  in  her  body's  ? 
Who  can  tell  ?  She  is  past  the  age  when  a  smeared  face, 
puckered  lips  and  bawling  cries  mean  grief  ;  when  ruddy 
cheeks  and  shouting  laughter  mean  joy.  She  does  not 
look  particularly  happy,  perhaps,  but  which  of  us  is  con- 
scious of  looking  specially  radiant  as  he  or  she  sits  alone, 
with  no  one  to  summon  to  the  surface  of  the  skin  that 
latent  cheerfulness,  of  which  few  have  enough  to  spend 
it  on  ourselves  alone?  And  yet,  at  this  moment,  the 
thoughts  passing  through  her  mind  are  not  disagreeable 
ones  ;  scarcely  thoughts  indeed,  lazy  summer  impressions 
rather,  of  the  pleasantness  of  the  tiny,  sky-colored  meadow 
that  lies,  all  turquoise,  under  her  eyes,  and  calls  itself  her 
forget-me-not  bed  ;  of  the  round  mother-swallow's  head, 
peeping  over  the  nest  beneath  the  eaves.  At  some  fur- 
ther thought  or  sensation,  a  slight  but  definite  smile 
breaks  up  the  severe  lines  of  her  young  yet  melancholy 
mouth.  At  the  sound  of  the  opening  door,  however,  in 
one  instant  it  is  dead. 

"  I  find  you  unoccupied  !  "  says  her  husband,  entering 
and  advancing  toward  her,  with  that  shuffling  gait  which 
plainly  tells  of  slippers  (she  has  not  then  been  able  to 
break  him  of  carpet  slippers). 

"  If  I  am  unoccupied  it  is  for  the  first  time  to-day  !  " 
she  answers  coldly. 

"  Since  you  are  at  leisure,"  he  pursues — his  want  of 
surprise  at  her  frigid  tone  betraying  that  it  is  her  habitual 
one — "  I  have  the  less  scruple  in  claiming  your  services," 
11 


24:2  BELINDA. 


"  What  is  it  that  you  want  ?  "  she  asks,  lifting  her 
eyes  to  his  face.  It  is  pleasant  to  be  looked  full  at  by  a 
handsome  woman  ;  but  if  she  has,  before  looking  at  you, 
taken  care  to  put  as  much  frost  as  they  can  hold  into 
her  fine  blue  eyes,  the  pleasure  is  very  sensibly  lessened. 
"  What  do  you  want  ?  We  can  not  surely  be  going  to 
have  any  more  Menander  to-day  ;  and  I  have  written  all 
your  letters — they  lie  on  your  study-table,  and  I  have  ex- 
actly followed  your  directions  as  to  each." 

"It  is  precisely  upon  that  subject  that  I  wished  to 
speak  to  you,"  rejoins  he,  glancing  at  a  paper  in  his  hand. 
"You  have  by  no  means  succeeded  in  expressing  the 
exact  shade  of  meaning  I  wished  to  convey  in  this  letter 
to  Herr  Schweizer,  of  Gottingen,  with  regard  to  the  new 
4  Fragment  of  Empedocles ' ;  and  I  am  afraid  that  I  must 
trouble  you  to  rewrite  it." 

"  And  I  am  afraid  that  I  must  trouble  you  to  excuse 
me,"  replies  she  quietly,  but  with  asperity  ;  "  my  tale  of 
bricks  for  to-day  is  really  complete." 

There  is  a  moment's  silence,  during  which  Belinda 
turns  her  head  pointedly  away  toward  the  laburnum-tree 
and  the  emerald  grass  ;  but  the  Professor  shows  no  signs 
of  retreating. 

"  If  I  were  taking  you  from  any  other  employment,  I 
might  hesitate,"  he  says,  with  peevish  pertinacity  ;  "but 
since  you  are  wholly  unoccupied — " 

"I  am  unoccupied  at  this  particular  moment,"  an- 
swers she,  with  an  accent  of  carefully  elaborated  pa- 
tience, which,  to  the  meanest  observer,  would  betray  the 
depths  of  her  impatience  ;  "  but  in  five  minutes  I  shall 
not  be  unoccupied  ;  in  five  minutes  I  set  off  to  the  station 
to  meet  Sarah,  who,  as  you  are  aware,  is  to  arrive  by  the 
4.35  train.  You  do  not,  I  suppose,  wish  me  to  take  a 
hansom  ?  "  (with  a  faint  sarcastic  smile  of  a  very  differ- 
ent quality  from  that  little  one  lately  addressed  to  the 


BELINDA.  243 


swallow  and  the  flowers),  "  and  the  day  is  too  warm  for 
it  to  be  possible  to  walk  fast." 

At  the  mention  of  Miss  Churchill,  a  distinct  new  crum- 
ple of  ill-humor  has  added  itself  to  the  already  numerous 
wrinkles  of  Mr.  Forth's  face. 

"  I  am  unable  to  see  that  any  obligation  to  meet  the 
train  lies  upon  you,"  he  says  obstinately  ;  "  your  sister  is 
eminently  well  able  to  take  care  of  herself !  " 

Belinda  shrugs  her  shoulders. 

"  It  is  a  mere  matter  of  habit,  of  course,"  she  says  in 
a  key  of  low  resentment ;  "  if  you  have  been  born  in  a 
walk  of  life  in  which  it  is  habitual  to  you  to  push  and 
elbow  for  yourself,  of  course  there  is  no  reason  why  you 
should  not  enjoy  it ;  but  you  must  remember  that  this  is 
not  Sarah's  case  ;  and,  since  you  declined  to  extend  your 
hospitality  to  her  maid,  she  is  alone." 

At  the  end  of  this  conciliatory  speech  she  stops,  and 
there  is  a  pause,  which  the  Professor  shortly  breaks. 

"  If  you  think  it  necessary,"  he  says  grudgingly,  "  I 
am  willing  to  send  a  servant  to  meet  your  sister  ;  but  I 
must  request  you  to  abandon  the  idea  of  going  yourself, 
by  which  means  you  will  be  left  free  to  render  me  the 
trifling  service  I  require  of  you." 

"  You  insist  upon  your  pound  of  flesh,  in  fact  !  "  cries 
she,  rising  suddenly  ;  her  body  trembling,  and  her  great 
eyes  lightening  with  anger  and  disappointment.  "  Well, 
you  are  more  fortunate  than  your  prototype  !  You  will 
get  it." 

To  his  death-day,  the  German  savant  will  never  sus- 
pect with  what  hotly  raging  and  rebellious  fingers  were 
penned  those  polite,  lucid,  and  erudite  lines  upon  Em- 
pedocles's  newly  discovered  "  Fragment,"  which  he  short- 
ly received. 

It  is  long  before  the  Professor  can  satisfy  his  own  fas- 
tidious ear  and  captious  mind  as  to  the  fitness  of  the 


244  BELINDA. 


phrases  to  be  employed.  Many  a  sheet  is  angrily  torn 
across  by  Belinda  ;  many  a  fresh  one  is  sullenly  begun 
before  her  task  is  ended — before  her  "  guide,  philosopher, 
and  friend  "  induing,  with  her  aid — aid  given  grudgingly 
and  not  unasked — his  cap  and  gown,  leaves  her  side  to 
attend  a  college  meeting.  Not  until  the  banging  of  the 
house-door  tells  her  that  he  is  really  gone,  does  she  give 
herself  the  indulgence  of  an  enormous  sigh. 

Throwing  herself  back  in  the  leathern  chair,  in  which 
she  has  been  sitting  at  the  writing-table,  with  weary  long 
arms  clasped  behind  her  neck,  and  dogged  eyes  staring 
at  the  flies  on  the  ceiling — 

"  God  loveth  a  cheerful  giver ! "  she  says,  aloud. 
"He  is  not  much  like  God  ! "  (to  a  woman,  the  man  that 
she  loves  and  the  man  that  she  hates  are  equally  name- 
less, equally  he).  "  So  as  he  gets  his  pound  of  flesh,  his 
tale  of  bricks,  what  does  he  care  ?  " 

As  she  speaks,  acrid  tears  issue  from  their  hidden 
ducts,  and  brim  her  eyes ;  but  she  shakes  them  vehe- 
mently away.  She  will  not  give  to  Sarah's  penetrating 
eye  the  chance  of  seeing  that  she  has  wept. 

"  I  will  not  be  pitied  ! "  she  says,  rising,  and  pulling 
herself  together  ;  "she  shall  not  pity  me  !  no  one  shall !  " 

She  goes  away  to  her  own  room,  changes  her  gown 
for  a  fresher  one,  dresses  her  hair  more  becomingly,  and 
practices  looking  happy  in  the  glass.  Before  she  has 
nearly  perfected  herself  in  this  accomplishment,  she  is 
driven  from  it  by  the  sight  and  sound  of  a  slow  fly,  rock- 
ing top-heavily  under  a  gigantic  dress-basket,  which  is 
making  for  her  gate.  Sarah  is  here,  and  she  will  not  be 
at  the  door  to  welcome  her.  The  thought  lends  wings  to 
her  young  heels,  and  the  color  and  the  smile  that  she  has 
been  vainly  aiming  at,  to  her  cheeks  and  lips.  Five  min- 
utes ago  she  did  not  think  that  anything  could  have 
caused  her  such  a  throb  of  pleasure  as  the  dear  old  sound 


BELINDA.  245 


of  that  jovial  high  laugh,  as  the  sight  of  that  Dresden 
china  face  and  of  those  monstrously  irrational  shoes  are 
now  giving  her.  When  they  lived  together,  they  seldom 
or  never  kissed  each  other.  Now  they  can  not  hold  each 
other  tight  enough.  Is  it  only  Sarah  that  Belinda  is  kiss- 
ing ?  Is  not  it  dead  youth,  dear  love,  sweet  Wesenstein, 
too,  that  she  is  so  straitly  embracing? 

Over  the  souls  of  both  sisters — the  sad  elder  and  the 
radiant  younger — the  recollection  of  their  last  miserable 
parting  on  that  hideous  January  morning  has  poured ! 
For  a  moment  or  two  neither  of  them  could  have  uttered 
a  syllable,  had  you  paid  them  a  thousand  pounds  a  word. 
They  are  brought  back  to  common  life  by  the  sound  of 
very  small  jingling  bells,  and  by  a  sensation  as  of  some- 
thing tightly  wound  round  their  legs.  It  is  Punch,  who, 
unmindful  of  the  chain  that  has  bound  him  all  the  way 
down  from  London,  and  delighted  to  be  again  in  the  fresh 
air  and  among  friends,  is  tearing  wildly  round,  offering 
eager  but  unreciprocated  greetings  to  Slutty,  who,  dodg- 
ing away  from  him,  shrewish  and  snarling,  practically  re- 
fuses to  admit  him  as  an  acquaintance  at  all. 

"  Why,  Punch  !  "  says  Belinda,  with  a  rather  unsteady 
laugh,  dropping  on  her  knees,  taking  the  excited  little 
dog  under  the  arms,  and  looking  kindly  in  his  Ethiop 
face  ;  "  you  here  ?  and  who  invited  you,  pray  ?  " 

"  I  am  afraid  that  nobody  invited  him,"  replies  Sarah 
demurely  ;  "  but  he  was  so  sure  that  it  was  an  oversight, 
and  he  says  Jane  is  no  companion,  and  he  sent  so  many 
messages  to  Slutty,  that  I  thought  it  was  the  simplest 
plan  to  bring  him  ;  do  you  mind  ?  "  with  the  old  wheed- 
ling in  her  voice  and  her  saucy  eyes. 

"  Do  I  mind  ? "  repeats  Belinda,  with  a  reproachful 
yet  apprehensive  stress  upon  the  pronoun,  passing  her  lips 
lightly  over  the  top  of  his  tawny  head.  "  Punch  !  is  it 
likely  I  should  mind  ?  " 


24:6  BELINDA. 


"  Will  he  mind  ?  "  inquires  Sarah,  speaking  very  low, 
and  mouthing  a  good  deal,  as  though  laboring  under  a 
misgiving  that  the  person  of  whom  she  speaks  is  in  hiding 
behind  the  door. 

"  He  is  not  fond  of  dogs,"  answers  Belinda  evasively, 
her  face  suddenly  darkening  as  if  a  light  had  been  blown 
out  in  it.  "  Slutty  exists  only  on  sufferance — do  not  you, 
Slutty?" 

"  Whew — w  !  "  says  Sarah,  pulling  a  long  face,  and 
with  a  low  whistle  ;  "  and  shall  I,  too,  exist  only  on  suffer- 
ance, pray  ?  " 

Belinda  is  saved  from  the  necessity  of  answering  a 
question,  her  reply  to  which  must  have  been  either  an 
incivility  or  a  lie,  by  the  fact  that  they  have  now  en- 
tered the  house,  and  that  her  sister's  roving  eyes  and 
attention  are  claimed  by  other  objects.  Preceded  by  the 
dogs,  Slutty  churlishly  growling,  and  Punch  animatedly 
sniffing,  they  reach  the  drawing-room. 

"  Not  such  a  bad  room ! "  says  Sarah  patronizingly, 
looking  round  ;  "  better  than  I  expected  ;  only  it  wants 
pulling  about." 

"  Mr.  Forth  does  not  like  rooms  pulled  about." 

The  other  breaks  into  a  laugh. 

"  Mr.  Forth  I  Is  it  possible  that  after  six  months  he 
is  still  Mr.  Forth?" 

"  What  else  should  he  be  ?  "  says  Belinda,  with  stiff 
embarrassment ;  "  he  has  not  yet  been  raised  to  the  peer- 
age ;  he  is  not  '  Lord  Forth ' !  " 

"  I  shall  call  him '  James ' ! "  says  Sarah  firmly  ;  "  I  am 
sure  that  he  will  wish  me  to  call  him  '  James ' ! " 

Mr.  Forth's  wife  laughs  grimly. 

"  It  will  at  least  have  the  charm  of  novelty  for  him  !  " 

There  is  such  a  bitter  dryness  in  the  quasi-play fulness 
of  her  tone  that  Sarah  stops  suddenly  short  in  her  critical 
survey  of  the  Early  English  chairs,  and  the  Albert  Dttrer 


BELINDA. 


etchings,  in  which  Oxbridge  drawing-rooms  delight ;  and 
focusing  her  elder  with  her  two  insistant  eyes,  says,  tak- 
ing her  the  while  firmly  by  both  wrists  : 

"  Come  now ;  we  are  alone ;  tell  me,  how  does  it 
work  ?  has  it  answered  ?  " 

But  Belinda  shakes  off  the  small  strong  hands  as 
Samson  shook  off  the  tough  withes. 

"  You  must  see  the  rest  of  the  house,"  she  cries,  be- 
ginning to  talk  rapidly  and  rather  loudly,  and  absolutely 
ignoring  the  question  addressed  to  her  ;  "  you  must  see 
my  room  ;  your  own  room — yours  looks  upon  the  tennis- 
ground  ;  have  you  brought  your  racquet  and  your  shoes  ? 
we  must  have  some  tennis  ! " 

Sarah  does  not  press  the  subject  so  obviously  avoided, 
but  as  she  follows  her  sister  up-stairs,  she  repeatedly 
shakes  her  head. 

"  This  is  my  room,"  says  Belinda,  as  they  reach  the 
landing,  throwing  open  doors  as  she  speaks.  "  This  is — 
his"  (with  a  slight  hesitation  before  the  pronoun,  that 
shows  that  only  the  dread  of  a  repetition  of  her  sister's 
ridicule  has  kept  her  from  designating  her  husband  by 
the  formal  style  and  title  which  she  habitually  employs 
toward  him)  ;  "  and  this  "  (not  opening  but  simply  indi- 
cating a  third  door),  "  this  is  old  Mrs.  Forth's." 

"  Oh,  do  take  me  in  !  do  introduce  me  !  "  cries  Sarah 
eagerly ;  "  it  has  been  the  dream  of  my  life  to  see  his 
mother !  You  will  not  mind  my  saying  so,  but  there  is 
something  so  humorous  in  his  having  a  mother." 

"  It  would  be  no  use,"  replies  Belinda,  not  offering  to 
comply  with  this  request  ;  "  she  would  probably  mistake 
you  for  her  son." 

"  Well,  we  have  a  look  of  each  other,"  cries  Sarah  de- 
lightedly ;  "  but  is  she  as  bad  as  that  ?  "  arching  her  eye- 
brows till  they  almost  meet,  and  are  lost  in  her  hair. 

Belinda  nods  in  acquiescence. 


24:8  BELINDA. 


"And  does  she  never  stop  asking  questions?" 

«  Never." 

"  And  do  you  always  answer  them  ?  " 

"  Poor  old  woman  !  why  not  ?  if  I  were  not  answering 
hers  I  should  only  be  answering  some  one  else's." 

There  is  such  a  weary  devil-may-carishness  in  her 
tone,  that  again  her  sister's  eyes  flash  investigatingly 
upon  her  ;  but  this  time  Belinda  has  been  too  quick  for 
her,  and  avoiding  their  scrutiny,  is  doing  the  honors  of  a 
fourth  room. 

"And  this  is  yours,"  she  says,  a  smile  such  as  the  one 
with  which  she  had  welcomed  her  sister  sweetening  and 
gentling  the  now  habitual  sullenness  of  her  face  ;  "  it 
smells  good,  does  not  it  ?  " 

"  Why,  you  have  given  me  all  your  flowers !  "  cries 
Sarah,  burying  her  face  in  a  bowl  of  freshly  picked  nar- 
cissus. "  I  noticed  that  there  was  scarcely  one  in  the 
drawing-room." 

"  Mr.  Forth  dislikes  the  smell  of  flowers,"  replies  Be- 
linda. She  says  it  in  a  tame,  level  voice  ;  not  as  making 
a  complaint,  but  simply  as  stating  a  fact. 

"  He  seems  to  have  a  good  many  dislikes,"  says  Sarah 
dryly. 

Belinda  lets  the  remark  fall  upon  silence. 


CHAPTER  II. 

DINNER  has  been  early,  and  is  over.  The  sisters 
stand,  each  cooling  a  fiery  cheek  against  the  woodwork 
of  the  drawing-room  window,  while  the  latest  blackbird 
is  singing  his  version  of  "  Glory  to  Thee,  my  God,  this 
night,"  and  the  laburnum's  lithe  bunches  hang  yellow 
against  almost  as  yellow  a  sunset. 


BELINDA.  249 


"  Does  he  never  open  a  window  ?  "  asks  Sarah,  greedily 
thrusting  out  her  head  into  the  cool  greenness  of  the  very 
respectably  grown  clematis  and  jasmine  that  climb  the 
house-wall. 

"Never!" 

"  Then  I  should  make  a  point  of  falling  off  my  chair 
in  a  faint  regularly  every  day,  at  dinner,  until  he  did." 

"  You  would  fall  off  your  chair  in  a  faint  every  day 
until  the  Day  of  Judgment,  in  that  case,"  replies  Belinda, 
with  stony  quiet. 

"JBut  for  the  stewpan  atmosphere,"  continues  Sarah, 
heaving  her  white  chest  in  a  deep  and  vigorous  inhalation, 
"  it  really  did  not  go  off  so  badly  ;  at  first  there  seemed 
a  trifling  awkwardness — I  think,  Punchy,  that  you  would 
have  done  as  well  on  the  whole  to  remain  at  your  town 
house — but  my  fine  tact  soon  smoothed  it  over." 

"You  did  not  call  him  <  James,'  however,"  replies 
Belinda,  with  a  short  sarcastic  laugh. 

"  Well,  no,"  replies  Sarah  a  little  blankly,  and  for  once 
in  her  life  making  no  attempt  at  repartee  or  explanation. 
"  I  did  not."  But  the  next  moment — "  How  soon  do  we 
go?  "  cries  she  joyously.  "  St.  Ursula's  is  the  largest  col- 
lege in  Oxbridge,  is  it  not  ?  Will  all  Oxbridge  be  there 
to  meet  the  Duke  ?  But  I  suppose  you  are  all  much  above 
setting  any  store  by  royalties  !  It  is  only  the  empire  of 
the  mind,"  pompously,  "  to  which  you  attach  any  value  !  " 

"Is  it?"  replies  Belinda  expressively. 

"  Now  I  am  the  common  British  flunkey,"  continues 
Sarah  confidentially  ;  "  and  so  used  you  to  be  !  I  love 
royalties  ;  there  is  nothing  too  small  for  me  to  hear  about 
them.  I  should  be  thoroughly  interested  to  learn  how 
many  pairs  of  stockings  the  Queen  has,  and  whether  she 
takes  sugar  in  her  tea." 

Belinda  laughs. 

"  Everybody  will  be  there,  then  ?  "  resumes  Sarah  in 


250  BELINDA. 


a  voice  of  the  extremest  exhilaration,  "  and  you  will  intro- 
duce me  to  everybody.  What  will  they  think  of  me? 
Will  they  expect  me  to  say  anything  clever  ?  Will  they 
like  me  ?  " 

"  H — m  !  "  replies  Belinda  dubiously,  scanning  affec- 
tionately from  head  to  foot  the  seductive  but  not  alto- 
gether academic  figure  before  her  ;  "  I  doubt  it !  " 

"After  all  they  must  be  human,"  says  Sarah  philo- 
sophically, "  when  one  has  pierced  the  thick  crust  of  their 
erudition — " 

"  Perhaps  in  some  cases  not  so  very  thick,"  interposes 
Belinda  ironically. 

"One  will  find  a  human  heart  beating  beneath — a 
heart  that  may  be  punctured  by  my  little  darts,  eh  ?  " 

"  Possibly  ! "  in  a  by  no  means  confident  tone. 

"I  shall  devote  myself  chiefly  to  the  undergraduates,  I 
think,"  says  Sarah  thoughtfully.  "  Do  you  know  many  ? 
do  you  see  much  of  them  ?  " 

Belinda  shrugs  her  handsome  shoulders  indifferently. 

"  Poor  boys  !  they  come  to  call ;  but  they  are  too 
much  afraid  of  me  to  open  their  lips.  I  have  lost  none 
of  my  power  of  inspiring  terror,"  she  adds  with  a  bitter 
smile.  "  It  is  the  one  of  my  gifts  that  I  keep  in  its  en- 
tirety." 

"  We  will  change  all  that,"  says  Sarah  piously  ;  "  the 
reign  of  fear  is  over  ;  that  of  love  is  begun  !  " 

Belinda  has  moved  to  the  middle  of  the  room,  and  is 
occupied  in  pulling  down  the  central  gas-jet,  and  lower- 
ing the  gas,  harshly  glaring  under  its  globes.  Her  pose — 
wreathed  head  thrown  back,  and  long  bare  arm  roundly 
lifted,  brings  into  evidence  the  finest  curves  of  her  noble 
figure. 

"  And  do  not  they  admire  you  either,  par  hasard?  " 
asks  Sarah,  in  a  voice  of  affectionate  incredulity. 

Belinda  shakes  her  head. 


BELINDA.  251 


"If  they  do,  they  disguise  it  admirably.  Stay  !  "  with 
a  gesture  of  recollection  ;  "  now  I  come  to  think  of  it, 
I  believe  that  one  young  person  of  an  aesthetic  tendency 
was  once  heard  to  observe  that  I  was  *  great  and  still '  ; 
but  that  is  the  only  civil  speech  I  have  reaped  in  six 
months,  and  even  that  one  is  perhaps  a  little  ambigu- 
ous." 

"  Great  and  still /"  repeats  Sarah,  giggling  ;  "well, 
at  all  events  they  shall  not  say  that  of  me  !  " 

She  is  still  chuckling,  when  the  opening  door  admits 
her  brother-in-law.  At  once  her  chuckle  has  an  inclina- 
tion to  die,  but  she  bravely  resists  it. 

"  I  appeal  to  you,"  she  says,  going  boldly  up  to  him. 
"  Belinda  has  been  taking  away  your  town's  character  ; 
she  says  that  she  is  not  at  all  admired  here,  and  that 
neither  shall  I  be  ;  is  it  true  ?  is  it  possible  ?  " 

It  is  certainly  well  to  be  on  easy  terms  with  your 
brother-in-law ;  but  in  a  case  so  exceptional  as  that  of 
Miss  Churchill,  it  is  perhaps  hardly  wise  to  address  him 
with  an  alluring  archness  that  may  remind  him  of  former 
disasters.  At  all  events,  in  the  present  case  it  is  not  suc- 
cessful. 

"  I  am  afraid  that  I  must  ask  you  to  excuse  me,"  he 
says  sourly,  turning  on  his  heel.  "  I  must  refer  you  to 
some  one  better  qualified  to  give  an  opinion  on  such  a 
point.  Belinda,  I  must  request  your  assistance  with  my 
gown." 

There  is  something  in  his  tone  so  unequivocally  un- 
playful,  that  Sarah  slinks  away  snubbed,  and  for  the  mo- 
ment robbed  of  all  her  little  airs  and  graces  ;  and  Belinda 
rises  with  rebellious  slowness,  flame  in  her  eye  and  revolt 
in  her  nether  lip,  to  render  the  grudging  aid  demanded 
of  her.  As  her  reluctant  hand  holds  the  gown  for  her 
husband  to  put  on,  they  both  find  themselves  uninten- 
tionally standing  plump  and  full  before  a  rather  large 


252  BELINDA. 


mirror,  inevitably  facing  their  own  figures,  thus  brought 
into  sudden  juxtaposition. 

Belinda  is  in  gala-dress.  In  honor  of  the  Duke,  and 
for  the  first  time  since  her  marriage,  Oxbridge  is  to  see 
her  neck  and  shoulders.  Upon  their  smooth  sea  of  cream, 
unbroken  by  any  trifling  necklet — a  sea  that  flows  un- 
rippled  over  the  small  collar-bones — the  gas-lamps  throw 
satin  reflets  ;  a  little  chaplet  of  seasonable  cowslips  clasps 
her  well-set  head,  and  wrath  has  borrowed  love's  red 
pennon  and  planted  it  in  her  cheeks.  She  looks  a  mag- 
nificent embodiment  of  youth  and  vigor,  dwarfing  into 
yet  meaner  insignificance  the  parched  figure  beside  her. 

Mrs.  Forth  casts  one  pregnant  look  at  the  two  reflec- 
tions, and  then  hearing,  or  feigning  to  hear,  a  sound  of 
suppressed  mirth  behind  her,  she  says,  in  a  clear,  incisive 
voice : 

"  What  are  you  laughing  at,  Sarah  ?  Are  you  admir- 
ing us  ?  Are  you  thinking  what  a  nice-looking  pair  we 
are?" 

She  lays  a  slight  but  cruel  accent  on  the  noun.  Pair, 
indeed  !  From  Fate's  strangely  jumbled  bag  were  never 
two  such  odd  ones  sorted  out  before.  The  Professor  has 
turned  sharply  away,  but  not  before  his  wife  has  had  the 
satisfaction  of  seeing  that  her  shot  has  told  ;  but  Sarah 
maintains  a  scared  silence.  The  fly  is  late  in  arriving. 
Probably  it  has  had  many  freights  to  take  up  and  put 
down  on  this  festal  night  before  the  Forths'  turn  comes. 
At  length,  however,  and  just  as  Sarah  is  beginning  wist- 
fully to  interrogate  her  Louis  Quinze  shoes  as  to  their 
powers  of  reaching  St.  Ursula  and  H.  R.  H.  on  foot,  it 
drives  up,  and  they  all  get  in.  Possibly  Belinda,  though 
she  makes  no  approaches  toward  a  verbal  amende,  may  be 
remorseful  for  her  spurt  of  malevolence.  At  all  events, 
she  offers  no  objection  to  the  raising  of  the  window  on 
her  side  ;  nor  does  she,  even  by  a  pardonable  gasp  or  two, 


BELINDA.  253 


or  an  obtruded  fanning,  resent  the  insult  to  the  summer 
night. 

The  lateness  of  their  fly  has  retarded  them  so  much, 
that  instead  of  being  first  at  the  rendezvous,  as  is  the 
Professor's  usual  habit,  they  see,  on  reaching  St.  Ursula's, 
the  great  quadrangle  that  the  proudest  churchman  built 
filled  with  every  carriage  and  bath-chair  that  Oxbridge's 
modest  mews  can  boast ;  filled,  too,  with  capped  men  and 
hooded  women,  hurrying  to  the  goal.  They  have  trodden 
the  low-stepped  stone  stairs,  along  whose  side  lie  un- 
wonted banks  of  green  moss  that  smells  of  cool,  wood- 
land places,  planted  with  young  field  flowers ;  have 
passed  the  one  slender  shaft  that,  upspringing,  bears  the 
vaulted  roof,  and  its  loveliest  stone  fans,  and  have  entered 
the  lordly  hall,  where  Elizabeth  Tudor  once  saw  Masks, 
and  where  one  of  the  sons  of  her  latest  successor  is 
listening  with  a  courteous  patience,  probably  superior  to 
hers,  to  such  improvements  upon  the  barbarous  Mask  and 
obsolete  Allegory  as  the  nineteenth  century,  rich  in  the 
spoils  of  its  eighteen  grandfathers,  can  afford  him.  In 
the  present  instance,  the  substitute  offered  is  a  tale  told, 
not  by  an  idiot,  but  by  an  excessively  hot  young  man, 
striking  occasionally  sensational  chords  on  the  piano,  at 
which  he  is  seated  upon  the  raised  da'is,  where  the  "  Fel- 
lows' "  table  is  wont  to  stand — a  monstrously  long  tale 
about  a  signalman,  who,  while  busied  in  working  his 
points,  sees  his  infant,  through  some  glaring  domestic 
mismanagement,  staggering  across  the  metals  at  the  pre- 
cise moment  when  an  express  train  is  due.  The  struggle 
between  his  emotions  as  a  parent  and  as  a  pointsman  is  so 
mercilessly  protracted,  that  the  audience,  unable  to  bear 
the  prolonged  strain  upon  their  feelings,  are  relieving 
themselves  by  a  good  deal  of  sotto  voce,  or  not  quite  sotto 
voce  conversation.  But  the  Prince  sits  immovably  polite, 
not  permitting  himself  even  one  aside  to  his  sbmillante 


254:  BELINDA. 


hostess,  who,  all  loyal  smiles,  is  posed  in  glory  on  a  chair 
in  the  front  rank  beside  him. 

Large  as  is  the  assemblage,  so  nobly  proportioned  is 
the  great  room,  that  there  is  no  crowd.  Every  woman 
has  put  on  her  best  gown  ;  and  every  woman  has  the  sat- 
isfaction of  thinking  that  every  other  woman  has  seen,  is 
seeing,  or  will  fully  see  it ;  not,  indeed,  to  do  them  justice, 
that  this  is  a  consideration  much  likely  to  engage  the  at- 
tention of  the  Oxbridge  ladies.  Thanks  to  the  height  of 
the  carved  oak  roof,  whither  the  vapors  can  ascend,"  be- 
low it  is  cool  and  fragrant.  With  the  one  emphatic  ex- 
ception of  the  detailer  of  the  signalman's  perplexities 
scarce  one  of  the  living  guests  has  a  more  heated  air  than 
the  brave  line  of  judges,  bishops,  philosophers,  premiers 
— St.  Ursula's  dead  glories — looking  down  in  painted 
tranquillity  from  the  walls. 

"  You  must  introduce  me  to  everybody,  and  tell  me 
who  they  are,  and  what  they  have  done,  so  that  I  may 
say  something  suitable,"  says  Sarah,  in  a  flutter  of  pleas- 
ure, looking  beamingly  round  on  the,  to  her,  eccentric 
throng  of  black-gowned  M.  A.'s,  with  their  flat  college 
caps  tucked  under  their  arms  ;  of  velvet-sleeved  proc- 
tors, etc. 

"  For  Heaven's  sake,  do  not  try ! "  says  Belinda,  in 
serious  dissuasion,  "  or  you  will  be  sure  to  make  a  mess 
of  it ! " 

Sarah  shrugs  her  white  shoulders.  She  is  so  clamor- 
ous to  be  presented  to  every  one,  that  Belinda,  after  pa- 
tiently pointing  out  to  her,  and,  where  feasible,  making  her 
personally  acquainted  with  the  owners  of  many  of  the  lo- 
cal, all  the  half-dozen  national,  and  the  one  or  two  Euro- 
pean reputations  that  grace  the  room,  at  length  strikes 
work. 

"  You  are  insatiable  !  "  she  says.  "  You  are  as  bad  as 
Miss  Watson  ! " 


BELINDA.  255 


"  ITnberufen  ! "  cries  Sarah,  with  a  shudder  that  is 
not  all  affectation,  "  do  not  mention  that  accursed  name  ; 
I  could  have  sworn  that  I  heard  her  voice  just  now  ! " 

The  room  is  fuller  than  it  was.  About  the  door,  in- 
deed, and  the  lower  part  of  the  hall,  circulation  is  still 
easy ;  but  who  would  be  content  with  elbow-room  at  a 
lower  end,  when  the  sight  of  a  genuine  live  English  royal 
Duke — no  dubious  Serene  German — is  to  be  fought  for 
at  the  upper  ? 

"  And  you  say  that  we  are  not  loyal !  "  says  Belinda, 
with  that  irony  now  so  frequently  assumed  by  her,  as 
they,  too,  push  and  jostle  their  forward  way.  They  have 
to  push  and  jostle  for  themselves. 

Immediately  upon  their  entry,  their  natural  pusher 
and  j ostler,  the  Professor,  has  quitted  them  for  associates 
more  akin  in  age  and  conformable  in  tastes  than  the  two 
handsome  girls  assigned  by  a  sarcastic  Providence  to  his 
jurisdiction.  As  they  so  work  slowly  forward,  gaining  a 
step  a  minute,  they  are  conscious  of  a  disturbed  heaving 
of  the  wave  of  humanity  behind  them — as  when  the 
ocean  is  plowed  by  some  puissant  steamer,  or  monstrous 
shark.  At  the  same  instant  a  familiar  voice,  whose  ac- 
cents Sarah  had  already  but  too  truly  caught,  breaks  in 
brazen  certainty  upon  their  ears  : 

"  I  am  sure  I  beg  a  thousand  pardons  !  but  in  a  crush 
of  this  kind  it  is  quite  unavoidable.  I  really  must  beg 
you  to  make  way  for  me  !  I  am  naturally  anxious  to  get 
to  the  top  of  the  room,  having  a  personal  acquaintance 
with  the  Duke,  or  what  really  amounts  to  the  same 
thing." 

The  loud  voice  grows  nearer,  the  wave-like  swell 
heavier.  She  is  close  behind  them  now. 

Belinda  has  turned  white  and  sick.  That  dreadful 
voice  !  Even  here,  on  this  hot  May  night,  in  the  thick 
festal  crowd,  of  what  power  is  it  to  re-create  for  her  that 


256  BELINDA. 


miserable  fog-stained  Christmas  morning,  on  which,  in 
her  madness,  she  had  allowed  a  few  senseless  words  ut- 
tered by  that  brutal  voice  to  seal  her  doom  for  her  ? 

"  Speak  to  her !  "  she  says,  in  a  choked  whisper  to  her 
sister.  "  I  can  not." 

"  Hold  your  head  down  !  "  rejoins  the  other,  hastily 
putting  into  practice  her  own  precept,  and  burying  her 
nose  in  the  lilies-of-the-valley  on  her  breast ;  "  perhaps 
she  will  not  see  us  !  " 

But  when  did  Miss  Watson  ever  fail  to  see  any  one  ? 

One  final  oaring  of  her  powerful  arm  has  brought  her 
alongside  of  them. 

"  Belinda  !  Sarah  !  "  she  cries  loudly,  seeing  that  her 
mere  presence,  although  sufficiently  obvious,  has  appar- 
ently failed  to  attract  their  attention  ;  "  do  not  you  know 
me  ?  Emily  Watson  ?  Dresden  !  Has  anything  been 
going  on  ?  have  I  lost  much  ? — I  could  not  possibly  get 
here  before — quite  a  sudden  thought  my  coming  at  all :  I 
heard  that  the  Sampsons  were  coming  down  to  see  their 
boy,  who  is  at  King's  ;  so  it  struck  me  I  would  join  them 
and  come,  too.  I  took  them  quite  by  surprise — met  them 
at  the  station.  c  Why  not  see  Oxbridge  all  together  ? '  I 
said  ;  ( halve  the  expense,  and  double  the  pleasure  ! ' ' 

She  pauses  out  of  breath,  and  looks  eagerly  onward 
toward  the  spot  where,  beyond  his  mother's  struggling 
lieges,  the  Prince  sits,  cool  and  civil,  with  his  suite  on 
their  row  of  chairs. 

"  I  was  so  afraid  that  the  Prince  might  be  gone,"  pur- 
sues she  volubly  ;  "  the  royalties  sometimes  go  so  early, 
you  know.  Have  you  been  presented  to  him  ?  Do  you 
know  him  ?  well  enough  to  present  me  ?  No  ?  Well, 
then  I  must  reintroduce  myself  :  I  have  no  doubt  that  a 
word  will  suffice  to  recall  me  to  H.  R.  H.'s  recollection. 
Royal  memories  are  proverbially  good,  you  know.  I 
must  get  hold  of  his  equerry  ;  I  know  him  quite  well — 


BELINDA.  257 


once  crossed  over  in  the  same  steamer  from  Newhaven  to 
Dieppe  with  him." 

The  last  few  words  are  thrown  back  over  her  shoulder, 
as  she  has  already  resumed  her  vigorous  fight  onward. 

With  fascinated  eyes  they  watch  her  athlete's  prog- 
ress to  the  front.  The  human  billows  part  before  her. 
The  crowd  lies  behind  her.  She  has  reached  smooth 
water  and  the  Prince. 

The  signalman's  troubles  are  by  this  time  drawing  to 
their  close.  .  His  rosy  babe  has  been  found  lying  smiling 
on  the  line  ;  the  express  train  having,  contrary  to  its 
usual  habit,  passed  over  the  pretty  innocent  without  in- 
flicting a  scratch.  Most  people  draw  a  long  breath  ;  but 
whether  at  the  babe's  immunity  or  their  own,  who  shall 
decide  ? 

"  She  is  making  him  shake  hands  with  her ! "  says 
Sarah,  in  a  shocked  voice,  standing  on  tiptoe,  and  stretch- 
ing her  neck. 

It  is  too  true.  In  defiance  of  etiquette,  and  despite 
the  horrified  look  of  the  hostess,  Miss  Watson  is  warmly 
grasping  her  Duke's  hand.  Against  the  background  of 
wall  and  chairs  her  figure  stands  out  plainly  silhouetted 
— fringe,  garish  evening-dress,  and  hot  red  neck !  To 
their  ears  come  even  fragments  of  her  resonant  speech  : 
"  Your  equerry,  sir  !  "  "  Newhaven  ! "  "  Sea-sick  !  " 

"  I  should  like  to  sit  down,"  says  Belinda,  in  a  spent 
voice. 

This  is  easier  said  than  done.  By  slow  degrees,  how- 
ever, they  succeed  in  edging  out  of  the  crowd ;  and  are 
lucky  enough  to  find  an  unoccupied  sofa,  upon  which  Be- 
linda seats  herself  ;  and  whither,  presently,  various  of  her 
acquaintance  come  and  exchange  remarks  with  her  upon 
the  success  of  the  entertainment,  the  excellence  of  the 
supper,  the  affability  of  the  Prince,  etc. 

In  one  of  the  intervals  between  two  of  these  frag- 


258  BELINDA. 


ments  of  conversation  she  perceives  that  her  charge  has 
left  her  side  ;  but  it  requires  no  very  distant  excursion  of 
the  eye  to  discover  her  standing  at  the  supper-table,  an 
ice  in  her  hand,  having,  by  the  agency  of  one  of  her  just- 
made  acquaintance,  effected  an  introduction  to  a  good- 
looking  undergraduate,  who  in  return  is  presenting  to 
her  a  second,  who  in  his  turn  will  obviously  present  to 
her  a  third  and  a  fourth. 

A  little  mob  of  young  men  is  beginning  to  gather 
round  her.  A  moment  more,  and,  her  ice  finished,  fol- 
lowed by  her  cortege,  Sarah  returns  to  her  sister,  winking 
so  deftly  as  to  be  invisible  to  the  outer  world  as  she 
comes. 

"  Belinda,"  she  says,  "  I  want  to  introduce  to  you  Mr. 
Bellairs,  who  tells  me  that  he  plays  tennis  remarkably 
well"  (an  indistinct  disclaimer  from  the  blushing  Bel- 
lairs)  ;  "  and  Mr.  Stanley,  who  plays  very  nicely  too  ; 
and  Mr.  De  Lisle,  who  thinks  he  would  play  very  nicely 
if  he  had  a  little  more  practice." 

Belinda  laughs  slightly,  amused  at  the  glibness  with 
which  her  sister  has  already  mastered  her  new  admirers' 
names. 

She  has  risen  to  her  feet  again — Professor  Forth's 
wife — the  stern-faced  beauty  whom  in  their  walks  and 
talks  the  boys  have  often  with  distant  awe  admired. 

"  I  am  sure,"  she  says,  with  a  sweet  cold  smile,  "  that 
if  you  care  to  try  our  small  ground,  I  shall  be  very — " 

She  is  a  tall  woman,  and  her  eyes  are  on  a  level  with 
Bellairs's.  She  can,  therefore,  easily  look  over  his  shoul- 
der. What  sight  is  it  so  seen  that  makes  her  stop  sud- 
denly in  mid-speech,  with  a  catch  in  her  breath  ?  The 
pause  is  but  short.  Almost  before  her  auditors  have  had 
time  to  notice  the  hiatus,  it  is  filled  up. 

"  I  shall  be  very  happy  to  see  you  any  day  you  choose 
to  come — to-morrow,  any  day  ! " 


BELINDA.  259 


Her  words  are  perfectly  collected ;  but  surely  she  is 
far,  far  paler  than  she  was  when  she  began  to  speak ; 
and  though  her  sentences  are  addressed  to  the  young 
men,  her  eyes  are  wandering  oddly  beyond  them. 

"  Upon  my  soul,  I  believe  the  woman  is  off  her  head  ! " 
Stanley  says  confidentially  to  Bellairs,  as  they  walk  home 
together  in  the  moonlight ;  "  did  you  notice  her  eyes 
when  she  was  talking  to  us?  they  made  me  feel  quite 
jumpy  ! " 

"  Off  her  head  !  "  growls  Bellairs,  who  finds  it  not  im- 
possible to  combine  a  poignant  interest  in  Sarah  with  a 
servile  moth-and-candle-like  homage  to  the  elder  and  se- 
verer beauty  ;  "  so  would  you  be,  if  you  were  married  to 
an  old  mummy  !  " 


CHAPTER  III. 

AND  what  was  it  Mrs.  Forth  saw  over  Bellairs's 
shoulder?  What  is  the  sight  that,  now  that  the  tem- 
porary call  upon  her  attention  is  withdrawn,  is  riveting 
into  such  an  agony  of  search  the  lovely  cold  eyes,  to 
which  so  few  things  seem  worth  looking  at  ?  Fortunately 
for  her,  a  new  batch  of  undergraduates  has  hurried  up 
to  be  presented  to  Sarah.  Never  since  the  days  of  Dres- 
den and  the  German  army  has  Miss  Churchill  had  her 
hands  so  full.  Belinda  is  free  to  send  her  gaze  unnoticed 
round  the  hall,  in  a  silent,  breathless,  passionate  quest. 
Quest  of  what  ?  She  does  not  ask  herself  how  much  the 
better  off  she  will  be  if  she  succeeds  in  finding  the  ob- 
ject of  that  quest.  To  find  it  !  to  find  it !  Come  what 
may  of  the  finding,  to  find  it !  Most  people  would  feel 
sure  that  she  has  been  deceived  by  an  accidental  resem- 
blance to  Rivers  in  some  stranger  ;  men  of  his  size,  com- 
plexion, and  bearing  being,  though  unhappily  in  a  minor- 


260  BELINDA. 


ity,  yet  still  numerous  among  two  thousand  youths  of  the 
English  upper  classes.  But  Belinda  would  laugh  to  scorn 
the  suggestion  that  at  any  distance,  or  in  any  glimpse, 
however  momentary,  she  could  have  mistaken  any  other 
for  him. 

There  exists  in  her  mind  no  smallest  doubt  that  the 
face  seen  in  that  one  lightning-flash,  and  then  instantly 
hidden  by  twenty  other  intervening  faces,  was  his— his 
or  his  angel's  !  Perhaps  he  is  dead,  and  that  he  has 
come  to  tell  her.  A  mute  sob  rises  in  her  throat. 
Whether  in  the  spirit  or  the  body,  she  must  find  him  ! 
At  intervals  of  every  few  minutes  she  is  interrupted  in 
her  search  by  the  greetings  and  observations  of  passing 
acquaintances.  She  answers  them  politely  and  connect- 
edly, but  with  a  brevity  that  does  not  encourage  a  pro- 
longation of  their  civilities ;  a  brevity  that  will  the 
sooner  leave  her  free. 

The  room  is  thinner  than  it  was,  or  rather  the  crowd 
is  distributed  more  evenly  over  its  whole  area.  Since 
the  supper-tables  sprang  into  sight — even  loyalty  giving 
the  pas  to  hunger  ;  the  uncertain  hope  of  a  bow  from  the 
Duke,  to  the  sober  certainty  of  lobster-salad — the  packing 
about  H.  R.  H.  is  less  dense.  The  guests  are  extended 
along  the  line  of  tables.  Of  Sarah,  indeed,  scarcely  a 
vestige  is  to  be  seen,  so  closely  is  she  hedged  in  by  a  wall 
of  boys.  At  something  she  has  just  said  they  all  laugh 
rapturously  ;  those  who  did  not  hear  it — so  firmly  assured 
already  in  her  character  as  a  wit — as  well  as  those  who 
did. 

The  signalman's  biographer  has  descended  from  his 
estrade,  and  is  talking  as  commonplacely  to  his  hostess  as 
if  he  wotted  nothing  of  parental  agonies  or  points,  and  as 
if  the  rosy  babe  had  been  sent  to  bed  with  the  whipping 
it  deserved.  Through  the  slackening  of  the  press  it  has 
surely  become  easier  for  one  seeking  to  discover  the  per- 


BELINDA.  261 


son  sought  ;  and  yet  for  a  while  she  seeks  in  vain.  How 
many  heads  there  are  !  Heads  bald  as  Caesar's  ;  heads 
thickly  clad  as  Absalom's  ;  heads  white,  heads  brown  ; 
sandy  heads,  pepper-and-salt  heads,  gold  heads  ;  long 
heads,  round  heads,  knobby  heads  ?  And  how  they  shift 
and  move  !  Will  they  never  stay  quiet  for  a  moment  ? 
And  among  them  all,  he  is  not  !  He  must  have  gone — 
gone  without  ever  conjecturing  her  nearness  ! 

Again  that  mute  sob  rises  chokingly.  Why  should 
he  not  be  gone  ?  Why  should  she  wish  that  he  were  not 
gone  ?  Why  should  she  wish  to  see  him  ?  What  has 
she  to  say  to  him  when  they  meet?  But  she  pushes 
roughly  aside  Reason's  cool  pleading.  Why  does  she 
wish  it  ?  Why — why  f  There  may  be  no  why,  but  she 
does  wish  it  ;  wishes  it  with  such  a  compelling  frenzy  of 
wishing,  as  seems  as  if  it  must  produce  the  fulfillment  of 
that  wish.  And  it  does.  Its  might  prevails.  Ah-h-h  ! 
For  in  a  moment  she  has  seen  him  again.  He  is  nearer 
now  ;  so  near  as  to  be  recognizable  past  mistake  or  mis- 
giving, even  by  eyes  less  acquainted  than  hers  with  every 
trick  of  lip  and  brow.  If  he  continues  to  advance  in  the 
direction  at  present  taken  by  his  steps,  it  is  impossible 
but  that  in  one  minute  or  less — in  perhaps  fifty  seconds, 
perhaps  forty — she  will  come  within  the  range  of  his  vis- 
ion. He  will  be  aware  of  her  as  she  is  aware  of  him. 

"  Are  you  ready  to  go  home  ?  "  says  a  voice  at  her 
elbow. 

She  turns  suddenly ;  eyes  alight,  and  heart  madly 
bounding,  to  find  her  husband  at  her  elbow.  The  revul- 
sion is  so  hideous  that  speech  wholly  fails  her. 

"  I  should  be  obliged  if  you  would  tell  me  where  I 
am  likely  to  find  your  sister,"  he  continues,  taking  her 
silence  for  assent,  since  she  is  never  very  prodigal  of  her 
words  to  him  ;  "  so  that  I  may  let  her  know  that  we  are 
going." 


262  BELINDA. 


But  at  that  she  finds  voice. 

"  Going ! "  she  says,  flashing  one  look  of  passionate 
dissent  at  him.  "  Why  should  we  go  ?  Impossible  !  " 

"  I  see  no  impossibility,"  he  answers  captiously  ;  "  we 
have  already  amply  satisfied  the  claims  of  civility.  The 
impossibility,  as  you  are  perfectly  aware,  lies  in  combin- 
ing such  late  hours  with  early  rising  in  the  morning." 

"  Then  why  should  you  rise  early  ? "  answers  she, 
with  tremulous  rebellion.  "  It  is  no  use  talking — I  can 
not  come  away.  You  forget  Sarah  ;  it — it  would  not  be 
fair  upon  Sarah  ;  I  have  neither  the  wish  nor  the  right  to 
spoil  her  enjoyment." 

"  I  should  imagine  that  nothing  would  be  easier  than 
to  find  a  chaperon  in  whose  charge  to  leave  her,"  rejoins 
he  persistently  ;  "  if  indeed,"  with  a  slightly  venomous 
look  in  the  direction  of  his  sister-in-law,  "  she  considers 
one  necessary." 

But  Belinda  only  observes  a  silence  which  he  divines 
to  be  mutinous.  He  is  accustomed  in  her  to  sullen  com- 
pliance, uncheerf  ul  acquiescence,  loath  obedience  ;  but  to 
open  revolt  he  is  not  accustomed,  and,  on  the  spur  of 
the  moment,  and  in  so  public  a  place,  he  is  not  prepared 
to  deal  with  it. 

"  Since  you  manifest  such  an  avidity  in  the  pursuit 
of  pleasure,"  he  says  resentfully,  "I  will  indulge  you 
with  another  half -hour,  at  the  end  of  which  time  I  must 
beg  that  you  and  your  sister  will  be  prepared  to  accom- 
pany me  without  further  remonstrance." 

He  does  not  await  the  answer,  which  perhaps  he 
knows  he  would  not  receive  ;  but  turns  on  his  heel  and 
leaves  her — leaves  her  free  to  pursue  that  feverish  search 
which  his  coming  had  so  rudely  interrupted. 

It  is  some  moments  before  she  again  finds  the  object 
of  that  search  ;  moments  long  enough  for  her  to  tell  her- 
self in  heart-bitterness  that  she  has  pushed  against  her 


BELINDA.  263 


fate  in  vain.  But  then,  all  in  a  moment,  she  has  found 
him  again.  He  is  farther  off,  indeed,  than  he  was  :  some 
trifle  must  have  diverted  his  steps  from  the  direction  then 
pursued  by  them  ;  and  he  is  still,  in  his  unconsciousness, 
slowly  widening  the  distance  between  them. 

It  is  possible  that  he  is  tending  toward  the  door  ?  that 
she,  unable  by  word  or  sign  to  arrest  him,  will  see  him 
go  ?  Oh,  but  life  is  a  hard  thing  !  Knowing  as  she 
does  that  at  one  lightest  cry  from  her  he  would  turn  ;  to 
be  no  more  able  to  utter  that  cry  than  if  a  real  material 
gag  were  choking  her  utterances  !  Can  it  be,  then,  that 
her  soul's  cry  has  reached  his  soul's  ears  ?  for  he  does 
turn  suddenly  and  smiling.  Has  he  seen  her,  that  he 
smiles  ?  Ah  no  !  Would  he  indeed  smile  if  he  saw  her  ? 
She  has  not  given  him  much  cause  to  smile  at  the  sight 
of  her.  Well,  he  is  wise.  He  has  again  averted  his 
look.  And  the  half-hour,  the  inexorable  half-hour  is 
passing  !  How  much  of  it  has  already  gone  ?  Ten  min- 
utes, at  least,  must  by  this  time  have  passed. 

There  are  only  twenty  minutes  for  hope  to  work  upon. 
Twenty  minutes  ! — and  then  the  close  fly,  the  Early  Eng- 
lish Villa,  Professor  Forth,  and  the  Fragments  of  Menan- 
der  !  To  the  end  of  time  Professor  Forth,  and  the  Frag- 
ments of  Menander  ! 

Again  her  thoughts  are  broken  in  upon  by  a  voice — 
Sarah's  this  time  ;  Sarah  having  shaken  herself  free  of 
her  disciples  ;  Sarah  with  a  solicitous  look  and  an  anxious 
eye. 

"I  think  it  best  to  tell  you,"  she  says  hurriedly,  und 
narrowly  watching  the  effect  of  her  words  upon  her  sis- 
ter's face  ;  "  I  was  afraid  lest  you  might  hear  it  suddenly 
from  some  one  else — some  stranger.  I  suppose  you  have 
not  seen  him  yet,  but  he  is  here  !  " 

"  I  know  it,"  answers  Belinda  shortly,  and  very  low. 

"  You — you  are  not  going  to  faint  ?  " 


264:  BELINDA. 


"  Faint !  why  should  I  faint  ?  "  with  an  accent  of  in- 
tense impatience,  her  eyes  still  riveted  on  the  now  again 
approaching  figure  ;  "  do  I  ever  faint  ?  " 

"  Would  you  like  to  go  home  ?  " 

"  Go  home  ! "  echoes  Belinda,  in  an  accent  of  fierce 
desperation  ;  "  why  do  you  all  sing  the  same  song  ?  why 
are  you  all  determined  that  I  must  go  home  ?  " 

"I  thought  you  would  wish  it,"  replies  Sarah  anx- 
iously. "  I  should  if  I  were  in  your  place.  Do  not  you 
think  it  would  be  better  ?  " 

But  she  speaks  to  deaf  ears.  Her  eyes,  still  fastened 
on  her  sister's  face,  see  that  face's  lilies  suddenly  dyed 
with  a  most  happy  and  loveliest  flush. 

The  sun  has  risen  :  he  has  touched  the  sunless  snow 
on  the  Jungfrau's  crest,  and  all  the  world  is  rosy  red. 
So  then  he  has  seen  her !  There  is  now  no  longer  any 
fear  of  his  departing  unintentionally  ignorant  of  her 
neighborhood. 

There  is  indeed  time  for  one  short  pang  of  alarm  lest 
he  should  do  what  in  her  heart  she  knows  if  he  were  wise 
he  would  do — and  who  knows  how  much  of  wisdom  these 
two  years  may  have  lent  him  ? — turn  away  and  knowingly 
avoid  her  !  But  apparently  he  is  not  wise. 

In  a  moment  he  has  pierced  the  small  portion  of  crowd 
that  still  separates  them  ;  pierced  it  with  a  good- will  that 
would  not  have  disgraced  Miss  Watson.  She  has  one 
instant  of  such  blissful  anticipation — only  a  thousandfold 
intensified — as  used  to  be  hers  in  the  Ltlttichau  Strasse, 
at  the  sound  of  Tommy's  childish  foot  pattering  up  the 
stone  stairs,  and  her  love's  firm  and  eager  tread  be- 
hind it. 

The  next  moment  they  have  met.  Their  unfamiliar 
right  hands  lie  in  one  another ;  and  they  say — nothing. 
Of  what  use  to  have  mesmerized  him  hither  by  her  eyes, 
and  the  insanity  of  her  voiceless  prayers,  if  she  have 


BELINDA.  265 


nothing  to  say  to  him  now  that  he  has  come  ?  But  hap- 
pily, though  she  and  he  are  speechless,  Sarah  is  not. 

"  So  it  is  you,  is  it  ?  "  she  says,  in  a  dry  voice  ;  "  now 
what  eccentric  wind  has  blown  you  here  ?  " 

He  does  not  answer  at  once.  Evidently,  as  of  old,  he 
has  forgotten  her  presence. 

"  I  see  that  you  still  have  your  old  trick  of  not  an- 
swering me,"  pursues  she,  running  quickly  on  with  a 
flightiness  that  conceals  a  good  deal  of  real  nervousness  ; 
"  but  never  mind  :  there  *  are  places  where  I  also  am  ad- 
mired,' as  Goldsmith  said.  Belinda,  do  you  know  that 
twenty-five  young  gentlemen  of  different  colleges  are 
going  to  be  so  good  as  to  call  upon  you  between  the 
hours  of  three  and  seven  to-morrow  ?  " 

Belinda  is  struggling  to  rouse  herself  out  of  her  in- 
toxication ;  already  so  far  unintoxicated  as  to  know  that 
it  is  intoxication. 

"Are  they?"  she  says,  with  a  weakly  laugh  ;  "I  am 
sure  that  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  them." 

"  And  meanwhile,  what  has  brought  you  here  ?  "  asks 
Sarah  persistently,  carrying  on  her  determined  talk  as  a 

shield  to  her  sister's  emotion. 

• 

Her  speech  has  the  effect  of  making  Rivers,  too,  put 
down  the  wine-cup  ;  of  bringing  him  also  back  to  the 
bald,  sober,  morning  prose  of  life. 

"I  have  come  to  take  my  degree,"  he  answers  ;  "I 
have  been  prevented  by — by  circumstances  from  taking 
it  before." 

So  now  she  has  heard  his  voice  !  To  have  touched 
his  hand  ;  to  have  met  his  eye  ;  to  have  heard  his  speech  ! 
Is  not  this  to  have  had  her  wish?  Surely  now  she  is 
content.  Surely  now  she  will  go  home  at  ease  and  satis- 
fied. But  who  was  ever  satisfied  with  one  wish  ?  What 
wish  ever  died  barren,  without  engendering  a  hundred 
more? 

12 


266  BELINDA. 


"  The  half -hour  is  expired  !  "  says  a  voice. 

The  Dresden  quartet  is  complete.  Perhaps  it  is  this 
thought  that,  rushing  simultaneously  into  three  out  of 
the  four  minds,  strikes  them  momentarily  mute.  Sarah 
is,  of  course,  the  first  to  recover  herself. 

"  What  a  mysterious  utterance  ! "  she  says,  with  a 
rather  forced  gayety  ;  "  what  half -hour  ?  any  particular 
half -hour  ? — You  remember  Mr.  Rivers,  do  not  you  ?  Mr. 
Rivers,  you  know  Mr.  Forth,  my — my  brother-in-law  ?  " 

There  is  a  slight  unintentional  hesitation  before  pro- 
nouncing, and  a  perhaps  intentional  slight  stress  in  pro- 
nouncing, the  last  word.  Rivers  has  stepped  back  a  pace 
or  two,  isolating  himself  from  the  augmented  group  ;  but 
at  this  summons  he  again  advances,  and,  except  by  the 
two  signs  of  a  sheet-white  face  and  set  teeth,  is  not  to  be 
distinguished  from  any  other  well-mannered  young  man 
making  a  bow.  But  the  Professor  would  be  slow  indeed 
to  mark  the  hue  of  any  undergraduate's  or  ex-under- 
graduate's face,  or  to  note  whether  his  mouth  were  open 
or  shut. 

"  The  fly  is  waiting,"  he  says,  returning  Rivers's  salu- 
tation with  cursory  indifference.  "  Belinda,  I  must  beg 
you  to  accompany  me  at  once,  and  not  keep  it  waiting." 

As  he  speaks,  he  looks  at  his  wife,  as  one  expecting 
and  braced  for  fresh  rebellion.  But  he  meets  with  none. 

"  Come  along  !  "  cries  Sarah,  with  alacrity  ;  "  we  are 
quite  ready,  are  not  we,  Belinda  ?  Enough  is  as  good  as 
a  feast ;  and  we  have  supped  full  of  pleasure.  Good- 
by ! "  nodding  with  cool  friendliness  over  her  shoulder, 
and  taking  her  sister's  hand. 

Belinda  offers  no  resistance  ;  flaccidly  she  complies, 
and  without  one  look  at  Rivers,  with  only  a  faint  bend 
of  her  head  in  his  direction,  begins  to  follow  the  Pro- 
fessor of  Etruscan  out  of  the  room.  Rivers  stands  stu- 
pidly looking  after  them.  The  tart  imperativeness  of 


BELINDA.  267 


her  husband's  tone  ;  his  employment  of  her  Christian 
name  ;  her  own  dull  docility — which  of  these  is  it  that 
makes  him  feel  as  if  some  one  had  given  him  a  great  blow 
over  the  head  with  a  club?  Presently  he  begins,  me- 
chanically and  purposelessly,  to  follow  them. 

The  crowd  is  thick  at  the  entrance  and  on  the  stone 
stairs — the  departing  crowd.  The  quadrangle  is  full  of 
vehicles.  Footmen  are  few  in  Oxbridge  ;  but  such  as 
there  are,  are  shouting  their  mistresses'  carriages  :  the 
humbler  multitude  are  pushing,  asking,  struggling  for 
their  flies.  Lucky  ones  are  finding  them  and  driving  off  : 
unlucky  ones  are  vainly  striving  to  identify  horse  or 
driver.  Among  the  latter  are  the  Forths.  In  coming 
out,  they  have  been  parted  by  the  press — that  is  to  say, 
the  sisters  have  lost  each  other — the  younger  loitering  in 
injudicious  dalliance  with  some  of  her  new  sweethearts  ; 
the  elder  plodding  on  in  dull  and  woolly  oblivion  of  all 
but  the  iron  necessity  of  following  that  cap  and  gown 
ahead  of  her. 

It  is  not  till  the  elusive  fly  is  at  length  found — till  her 
foot  is  on  the  step,  and  Professor  Forth  is  sharply  urging 
her  in  by  the  elbow  from  behind,  that  she  becomes  aware 
of  having  mislaid  her  junior. 

"  Get  in — get  in  !  "  cries  he  crossly  ;  "  what  are  you 
waiting  for  ?  " 

"But  Sarah!"  she  says,  awaking  from  her  uncon- 
sciousness and  looking  hastily  round  ;  "  what  has  be- 
come of  Sarah  ?  we  can  not  go  without  Sarah  !  " 

He  makes  an  irritated  gesture. 

"  No  doubt  she  has  joined  some  other  party  ;  no  doubt 
she  will  do  very  well :  at  all  events,  in  this  confusion  it 
is  impossible  to  attempt  to  find  her  ! " 

"  It  is  much  more  impossible  to  go  without  her  !  "  re- 
plies she  firmly,  withdrawing  her  foot  from  the  step  ;  "I 
wonder  that  you  should  propose  such  a  thing ! " 


268  BELINDA. 


"  She  is  perfectly  well  able  to  take  care  of  herself  ! " 
retorts  he,  recurring  to  his  old  and  spiteful  formula  ; 
"  she  will  find  her  own  way  home  !  " 

"  Then  I  will  find  my  own  way  home,  too  !  "  answers 
she  indignantly,  and  resolutely  turning  her  back  upon 
him  and  the  open  fly-door.  She  is  too  indignant  even  to 
deign  to  observe  whether  he  takes  her  at  her  word. 

The  crowd  is  still  issuing,  issuing  ;  crossing  the  moon- 
lit square  on  foot  ;  nodding  good-night  out  of  carriage- 
windows  ;  away  they  go  !  She  retraces  her  steps  to  the 
stair-foot.  It  is  not  pleasant  work  pushing  against  a  hu- 
man tide  ;  and  so  she  finds.  It  is  bewildering  to  be  star- 
ing into  every  face  ;  peering  under  all  the  hoods  and  muf- 
flers. And  among  all  the  faces,  under  all  the  hoods  and 
mufflers,  is  no  Sarah  to  be  found.  It  is  obvious  that  the 
Professor  is  right.  She  has  found  her  own  way  home. 

The  company  is  melting  away  so  rapidly  that,  unless 
she  wishes  to  be  shut  into  the  college  for  the  night,  she 
must  needs  follow  her  example.  Well !  there  is  no  great 
hardship  in  that  !  She  is  in  the  mood  when  the  abnormal, 
the  unusual,  seems  more  tolerable  to  her  than  the  accus- 
tomed, the  every-day.  Half  an  hour  of  solitude  and  mid- 
night !  Half  an  hour  in  which  to  be  Belinda  only — not 
Belinda  Forth  at  all  !  Half  an  hour  in  which  to  reckon 
with  this  night  and  its  work  !  She  has  already  made 
half  a  dozen  steps  along  the  stone  flags  of  the  quadran- 
gle, when  some  one  comes  up  behind  her.  Had  she  known 
that  he  would  come  up  behind  her,  that  she  makes  no 
sign  of  surprise,  nor  any  pause  in  her  walk  ? 

"  You  are  alone  ?  "  he  says  with  agitation. 

"  It  seems  so,"  she  answers.  It  is  the  same  dry  voice 
with  which  she  had  so  often  galled  and  chilled  him  at 
Dresden. 

"  You  have  lost  your — your  party  ?  " 

"I  have  lost  Sarah." 


BELINDA.  269 


"  And  your — and  Professor  Forth  ?  " 

"He  could  not  wait,  and  I  could  not  go  without 
Sarah." 

"  And  he  has  left  you  behind — alone  f  " 

She  is  silent,  still  speeding  along  in  the  moonlight. 

"  And  how  do  you  propose  to  get  home  ? "  he  asks, 
keeping  up  with  and  determinately  addressing  her. 

"  I  am  getting  home  as  fast  as  I  can." 

"You  mean  to  walk?" 

"It  looks  like  it." 

Her  tone  is  brusque  and  dogged  ;  but  if  she  hopes  by 
its  means  to  rid  herself  of  her  companion  she  is  mistaken. 

"  In  evening-dress  ?  " 

"  Pooh  !  "  she  says,  with  a  hard  laugh  ;  "  we  are  not 
so  fastidious  here,  nous  autres ;  I  walk  out  to  dinner 
every  night  of  my  life  !  " 

"But  not  alone?" 

Her  face  darkens.     "  No,  not  alone." 

They  have  reached  the  gateway  and  Wren's  domey 
tower.  She  has  stopped  in  her  resolute  walk  ;  but  in  the 
stopping  there  is  as  much  resolution  as  there  was  in  the 
hurrying. 

"  Here  we  part,"  she  says  shortly  ;  "  good-night !  " 

"  You  must  allow  me  to  see  you  home,"  he  answers 
firmly. 

"  I  have  already  told  you  that  it  is  absolutely  unne- 
cessary," retorts  she  roughly. 

There  is  an  instant's  interval  before  his  rejoinder. 
They  are  putting  out  the  lights  in  the  hall ;  the  great 
building  is  greedily  devouring  half  the  moonlight  in  the 
quad,  with  its  raven  shadow.  It  has  embraced  the  foun- 
tain in  the  middle.  It  is  not  much  of  a  fountain,  but 
how  pleasantly  its  little  voice  pierces  through  the  noise 
of  rolling  wheels  and  human  shoutings  !  For  how  many 
centuries  could  she  gladly  stand  here  listening  to  it ! 


270  BELINDA. 


"  You  must  allow  me  ! "  with  perfect  respect,  but  ob- 
stinately. 

"I  must  not!"  Is  the  night-wind  heady,  like  wine? 
Her  tone  changes  to  one  that  is  almost  entreaty.  "I  had 
rather  you  did  not ;  I  ask  you  not !  " 

Her  incivilities  had  left  him  iron  ;  to  her  pleading  he 
is  as  wax. 

"  It  shall  be  as  you  wish,"  he  says,  gravely  bowing. 

There  is  nothing  now  to  detain  her,  and  yet  she 
lingers  an  instant,  as  though  expecting  him  to  say  some- 
thing more.  But  he  adds  nothing.  She  turns  out  of  the 
gateway  and  into  the  street,  and  walks  fast  and  steadily 
up  it.  There  are  not  many  towns  through  which  it  would 
be  judicious  for  a  young  and  solitary  woman  to  take  her 
way,  bareheaded  and  in  flimsy  ball-gown,  at  midnight ; 
but  about  Oxbridge,  Una,  without  her  lion,  might  have 
strayed  unassailed  from  sunset  to  sunrise.  Involuntarily 
she  slackens  her  speed  a  little,  from  the  almost  run  with 
which  she  had  begun  her  course,  though  still  keeping  at  a 
moderately  rapid  walk.  What  cause  is  there  for  hurry  ? 
There  is  nothing  now  to  hasten  from  ;  and  Heaven  knows 
there  is  nothing  to  hasten  to  ! 

She  did  well  to  be  peremptory  ;  but,  after  all,  he  was 
not  very  much  in  earnest ;  he  did  not  press  the  point.  It 
is  much  better  that  it  should  be  so  ;  but  still,  as  a  mere 
matter-of-fact,  he  did  not.  She  looks  up  at  the  sky, 
which  is  spreading  out  the  jewels  it  has  kept  hidden 
through  the  staring  day,  spreading  them  out  for 

"  The  fair  city  with  her  dreaming  spires  " 

to  look  up  at  and  admire  ;  all  its  bright  belts  and  bears  ; 
its  gods  and  goddesses.  Then  she  looks  suddenly  round. 
There  are  still  a  good  many  people  about,  but  no  under- 
graduates ;  for  the  University  mother  has  gathered  her 
curled  darlings  to  her  bosom  for  the  night. 


BELINDA.  271 


The  man,  then,  who  is  keeping  pace  with  her,  footstep 
for  footstep,  twenty  yards  behind,  is  no  undergraduate. 
She  redoubles  her  speed  again.  Pooh  !  his  presence  has 
no  reference  to  her.  He  is  only  taking  the  natural  road 
to  his  hotel.  But  she  does  not  look  round  again  until 
the  more  bustling  streets  lie  behind  her ;  until  she  has 
reached  the  broad  still  thoroughfare  where  a  range  of 
gray  colleges  and  a  row  of  sentinel  elms  hold  quiet  con- 
verse with  the  stars. 

Then,  as  if  the  muscles  of  her  neck  had  been  moved 
by  some  one  else,  she  not  consenting,  once  again  she 
turns  her  head.  The  hotels  are  long  passed.  If  he  is 
still  following,  it  is  she  whom  he  is  following.  And  lo  ! 
twenty  yards  behind  her,  there  he  is,  stepping  through 
the  moonlight ! 

She  gives  a  low,  excited  laugh.  Well,  they  have 
both  had  their  will  then  :  he  has  not  walked  home  with 
her ;  she  has  not  walked  home  alone.  It  is  a  compro- 
mise. Again  she  looks  up  to  the  heavens.  What  a 
lovely,  lovely  vault !  What  seed  -  pearl  of  constella- 
tions !  What  great  planet-diamonds  ! 

The  clocks  have  just  begun  to  strike  midnight ;  the 
city's  innumerous  clocks,  cathedral,  college,  church  ;  the 
booming  bell,  the  sharp  strike,  the  melodious  chime ! 
How  nobly  their  loud  wedded  harmony  floods  the  night ! 
And  is  there  one  of  the  gardens — she  has  reached  the  sub- 
urb of  villas  and  gardens  by  this  time — that  has  not  con- 
tributed the  breath  of  its  gillyflowers  to  make  the  boon 
air  so  sweet  ? 

She  walks  on  with  her  strong  elastic  tread.  After  all, 
it  is  good  to  be  young :  to  have  a  fine  ear  for  sound  ;  a 
nostril  sensitive  to  fragrance  ;  and — the  consciousness 
that  behind  you  there  is  one  protecting  you  where  there 
is  nothing  to  be  protected  from — guarding  you  where 
there  is  nothing  to  be  guarded  against. 


272  BELINDA. 


She  has  reached  her  own  gate,  and  at  it  halts,  her 
hand  upon  the  latch.  Here  surely,  under  the  aegis  of  her 
own  roof -tree — here,  where  that  twinkling  night-light 
shows  the  exact  spot  where  her  husband  is  addressing  him- 
self to  his  slumbers — she  may  abate  a  little  of  her  rigidity. 

Seeing  her  arrived,  he  too  has  halted  ;  nor  is  it  until 
by  a  faint  motion  of  her  hand  she  gives  him  leave  to 
approach,  that  he  ventures  to  draw  near  her. 

"  Thank  you  !  "  she  says  with  a  smile  ;  to  which  it  is 
perhaps  the  moonlight  that  lends  its  quivering  uncer- 
tainty ;  "but  it  was  not  necessary." 

He  neither  disclaims  nor  accepts  her  acknowledg- 
ments. Gravely  he  unfastens  the  iron  gate  for  her  ; 
while  above  his  gold  head  the  laburnum  droops  her  gold 
curls.  The  moon  has  taken  their  color  out  of  both,  and 
substituted  her  own.  Is  he  then  still  going  to  say  noth- 
ing ?  But  as  she  passes  through,  he  speaks  : 

"  I — I — am  not  leaving  Oxbridge  to-morrow.  I  shall 
be  in  Oxbridge  all  to-morrow." 

"  Shall  you  ?  "  she  says  faintly. 

"  I  have  not  done  anything  to  forfeit  your  friendship, 
have  I?"  he  asks,  while  in  the  moonlight  she  sees  his 
right  hand  tighten  its  nervous  clasp  on  one  of  the  spiked 
iron  uprights  of  the  gate. 

She  is  quite  silent. 

"Have  I?"  he  repeats,  in  a  tone  as  of  one  who, 
though  patient,  will  not  go  without  his  answer.  (Is 
truth  always  the  best  to  be  spoken?  Then  let  it  be 
spoken  !) 

"Nothing!" 

"  Is  there  then  any  reason  why  I  should  not  come  and 
see  you  to-morrow  ?  " 

Silence  again  ;  her  look  wandering  undecidedly  over 
her  flower-bed. 

"Is  there?" 


BELINDA.  273 


Her  eye  has  caught  the  Professor's  night-light  again 
— that  ill-favored  Jack-o'-Lantern  that  is  to  dance  for- 
ever across  the  morass  of  her  life. 

"  None  ! "  she  answers  firmly  ;  and  with  that  firm 
"  None  !  "  she  leaves  him. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

"  HE  was  not  far  wrong,"  says  Sarah  dispassionately, 
"  though  I  am  afraid  that  it  was  scarcely  in  a  brotherly 
spirit  that  he  said  it ;  I  am  eminently  well  able  to  take 
care  of  myself  !  " 

It  is  next  morning,  and  the  girls  are  beginning  the 
day  with  a  preliminary  saunter  round  the  narrow  bounds 
of  the  little  garden,  and  the  newly-mown  tennis-ground. 
They  are  very  small  bounds,  but  within  them  is  room  for 
undried  dew ;  for  a  blackbird  with  a  voice  a  hundred 
times  bigger  than  its  body ;  for  a  guelder-rose,  a  fine 
broom-bush,  and  a  short-lived  lilac.  What  more  would 
you  have  ?  Beneath  one  Turkey-red  sunshade  they  stroll 
in  slow  contentment  along. 

"  I  have  no  foolish  false  pride,"  continues  Sarah  com- 
placently ;  "  when  I  realized  that  I  was  left  behind,  I 
saw  that  the  only  thing  to  be  done  was  to  make  some  one 
give  me  a  lift  home  ;  they  did  not  much  like  it  at  first, 
but  they  were  very  glad  afterward,  when  they  found  that 
they  had  '  entertained  an  angel  unawares  ! '  " 

"  And  how  did  they  find  out  that  they  had  ? "  asks 
Belinda  dryly. 

"  They  were  delighted  with  my  conversation,"  rejoins 
the  other  importantly  ;  "  I  could  not  have  done  it  if  you 
had  been  by,"  breaking  into  a  laugh  ;  "  but  I  talked 
about  the  Higher  Education  of  Women  ! " 


274  BELINDA. 


Belinda  joins  in  the  laugh  ;  nor  is  there  any  evidence 
of  her  mirth  being  less  spontaneous  and  bubbling  than 
her  sister's.  Ahead  of  them  the  little  dogs  are  frisking. 
At  least,  to  speak  more  correctly,  Punch  is.  What  little 
frisk  time  and  fat  have  left  to  Slutty  has  been  stamped 
out  of  her  by  mortification  at  Punch's  reappearance  on 
the  scene.  When  you  are  no  longer  in  your  first  youth, 
there  is  really  not  much  amusement  in  having  one  of  your 
hind-legs  continually  pulled,  mouthed,  and  facetiously 
worried  from  behind. 

"And  you,"  says  Sarah,  standing  on  tiptoe  to  reach  a 
lilac-bough,  and  rub  her  face  luxuriously  against  it ; 
"  how  did  you  get  home  ?  " 

A  red  sunshade  always  diffuses  a  glow  over  the  face 
beneath  it. 

"  Oh,  I  walked,"  with  an  assumption  of  inattention. 

"Alone?" 

There  is  a  second's  hesitation  before  the  answer 
comes.  Belinda  is  naturally  veracious  ;  but  after  all, 
there  is  nothing  incompatible  with  literal  veracity  in 
answering : 

"  Yes,  alone." 

"  Were  not  you  frightened  ?  "  asks  Sarah. 

Her  tone  is  careless  ;  but  she  has  loosed  the  lilac- 
bough,  and  her  shrewd  eyes  are — perhaps  accidentally — 
bent  upon  her  sister's. 

"  Frightened  !  "  repeats  Belinda,  with  an  impatience 
that  seems  out  of  proportion  to  the  occasion,  eagerly  fol- 
lowing her  junior's  example,  and  thrusting  her  hot  cheeks 
among  the  cool  and  sugared  lilac-clusters  ;  "  what  a  silly 
question  !  why  should  I  be  frightened  ?  what  was  there 
to  be  frightened  at  ?  " 

But  to  this  heated  inquiry  Sarah  makes  no  answer  ;  a 
reticence  which  causes  a  feverish  misgiving  to  dart  across 
Belinda's  mind.  But  no  !  her  sister's  room  looks  toward 


BELINDA.  275 


the  back.  Sarah  has  an  eye  like  a  greyhound,  an  ear  like 
a  stag,  and  a  nose  like  a  truffle-dog,  but  even  she  can  not 
see  and  hear  through  deal  boards. 

"  I  must  leave  you  to  your  own  devices  this  morning," 
she  says,  changing  the  subject  with  some  precipitation  ; 
"you  must  amuse  yourself  as  well  as  you  can  till  lunch- 
eon-time." 

Sarah  lifts  her  eyebrows.  "  Do  you  mean  to  say  that 
you  intend  to  take  three  hours  in  ordering  dinner  ?  " 

"  Ordering  dinner !  "  echoes  the  other  ironically  ;  "  or- 
dering dinner  indeed !  did  you  ever  happen  to  hear  of 
Menander  ?  " 

"  Never." 

"  Nor  of  his  Fragments  ?  " 

"  Never." 

"Nor  of  his  notes,  Philological,  Critical,  and  Archaeo- 
logical ?  " 

"Never." 

"  Happy  you  !  "  says  Belinda  dryly,  beginning  to  walk 
toward  the  house. 

"  If  I  were  you,"  cries  Sarah  irreverently,  calling  after 
her,  "  he  should  be  in  still  smaller  *  fragments  '  before  I 
had  done  with  him  !  " 

Belinda  laughs. 

"  Bah  !  "  she  says  ;  "  it  is  all  in  the  day's  work  ;  per- 
haps it  is  better  to  have  too  much  to  do,  like  me,  than 
too  little,  like  you." 

There  is  such  a  strong  tincture  of  cheerfulness  in  the 
tone  with  which  she  speaks,  it  differs  so  widely  from  the 
dogged  submission  of  yesterday,  that  Sarah  eyes  her  sus- 
piciously. 

"  You  take  a  rosy  view  of  life  this  morning,"  she  says 
with  a  streak  of  sarcasm. 

Belinda  changes  color. 

"  It  is  a  matter  of  weather,"  she  says  quickly.     "  I  am 


276  BELINDA. 


very  much  influenced  by  weather  ;  you  know  that  you  al- 
ways used  to  say  that  I  was  a  weather-glass  ! " 

But  is  it  a  matter  of  weather  ?  Is  it  the  weather  that 
sends  her  humming  with  irresistible  gayety  to  her  desk 
and  Menander  ?  Spring-time,  it  is  true,  is  exhilarating  ; 
morning  is  exhilarating ;  life's  morning  is  exhilarating  : 
'why,  then,  should  she  not  be  exhilarated  ?  But  is  it  of 
these  three  innocent  stimulants  only  that  she  is  drinking  ? 
There  must  be  something  different  from  her  wont  in  the 
very  quality  of  her  step  as  she  enters  her  husband's  study, 
for  he  looks  up. 

"  You  are  late,"  he  says  briefly. 

"  Only  three  minutes,"  she  answers  pleasantly  ;  "  and 
I  will  make  it  up  at  the  other  end." 

She  seats  herself  at  her  escritoire,  forcibly  and  with 
difficulty  swallowing  down  the  end  of  the  tune  that  she  has 
been  singing  to  herself,  under  her  breath,  all  the  way  up- 
stairs. Even  the  very  room — the  hated  task- work  room 
— looks  different  from  what  it  ordinarily  does.  Usually 
it  is  quite  sunless  ;  but  this  morning  a  long,  slant  dart  of 
gold  has  squeezed  itself  in,  taking  no  denial,  and  on  it 
how  the  dust-motes  are  dancing  !  Must  everything  dance 
to-day  ? 

The  Professor,  at  least,  is  an  exception  to  the  general 
rule.  He  shows  no  signs  of  any  wish  to  dance.  While 
dictating,  he  is  in  the  habit  of  walking  up  and  down. 
She  knows  the  exact  square  in  the  carpet  from  which  he 
will  start,  and  that  at  which  he  will  pause  and  turn.  He 
has  begun  his  diurnal  course  ;  but  there  is  a  moment's  in- 
terval before  the  first  words  of  the  first  sentence  leave 
his  lips. 

She  pauses,  pen  in  hand,  awaiting  them ;  and  as  she 
pauses,  following  him  with  her  eyes,  a  feeling  of  genuine 
and  potent  compassion  passes  through  her  heart  and 
brain. 


BELINDA.  277 


"  How  dreadful  to  be  old  !  How  hideous  to  be  ugly, 
cantankerous,  unloved  !  " 

"I  think,"  she  says,  under  this  impulse,  speaking  in  a 
gentle,  hesitating  voice,  "  that  I  owe  you  an  apology  for 
my  rude  speech  about  you  to  Sarah,  after  dinner  yester- 
day. I  dare  say,"  laughing  nervously,  "  that  you  have 
forgotten  it.  I  am  sure  it  was  not  worth  remembering  ; 
but,  at  all  events,  it  makes  me  easier  in  my  mind  to  tell 
you  that  I  regret  it." 

The  intention  of  this  speech  is  excellent  ;  as  a  mere 
question  of  judgment  and  tact,  it  is  doubtful  whether  it 
had  not  been  wiser  to  have  left  her  stinging  jest  lie,  with- 
out resuscitating  it  even  to  repent  of  it. 

The  expression  of  his  face  shows  whether  or  no  he  has 
forgotten  it. 

"I  think,"  he  says  aridly,  "  that  since  we  are  already 
late,  we  had  better  keep  to  the  subject  in  hand." 

For  a  moment  or  two  she  bows  her  crimsoned  face 
and  bitten  lips  over  her  desk,  in  furious  annoyance  at 
having  laid  herself  open  to  this  self-inflicted  humiliation. 
But,  ere  long,  her  serenity  returns.  It  is  only  wounds  in- 
flicted by  those  we  love  whose  sting  lasts. 

After  all,  she  has  done  her  part ;  she  has  made  the 
amende.  Of  what  least  consequence  is  it  how  he  has 
taken  it  ?  But  her  compassion  is  dead.  He  may  look  as 
old,  as  pinched,  as  bloodless  as  he  chooses.  No  smallest 
throb  of  pity  stirs  her  heart  again ;  nor  does  any  other 
word,  unrelating  to  the  subject  of  her  labor,  cross  her 
lips. 

Through  all  the  fresh  bright  morning  hours,  he  trav- 
els from  his  one  carpet-square  to  his  other  carpet-square, 
elaborating  careful,  classic  phrases  as  he  goes  ;  and  she, 
in  docile  silence,  follows  him  with  her  pen. 

The  sun  soars  high  ;  the  drowsy  flies  inside  the  shut 
window  make  their  futile  journeys  up  and  down  the  pane. 


278  BELINDA. 


The  swallows  sweep  across  outside,  bells  ring,  butchers 
and  bakers  drive  up  and  drive  away  ;  but  not  one  of 
these  distracting  objects  does  she  allow  to  beguile  her  for 
one  instant  of  her  toil.  She  will  do  her  task-work  consci- 
entiously, thoroughly,  wholly,  so  that  hereafter  neither 
he  nor  she  herself  may  have  anything  to  reproach  her 
with  ;  and  then,  when  it  is  ended — she  allows  herself  one 
long  breath  of  prospective  enjoyment — why,  then  the  sun 
will  still  be  high  ;  the  swallows  will  still  be  darting  ;  the 
lengthy  May  afternoon,  with  probabilities  too  bright  to 
be  faced  in  its  green  lap,  will  still  be  hers. 

And,  meanwhile,  how  well  the  pens  write  !  how  clear 
her  own  apprehension  seems  !  She  has  even  suggested  a 
verbal  emendation  or  two,  which  his  nice  ear  has  accept- 
ed. How  quickly  the  morning  is  passing  !  Can  it  indeed 
be  a  quarter  to  one  that  the  College  clocks  are  striking  ? 
After  all,  there  is  no  great  hardship  in  being  amanuensis 
to  a  savant  afflicted  with  weak  eyes  ;  it  is  a  great  mat- 
ter to  be  able  to  be  of  use  to  some  one  ! 

She  looks  up,  smiling  rosily  ;  if  not  forgetful,  forgiv- 
ing, of  her  former  snub. 

"  "We  have  done  a  good  day's  work  !  "  she  says  con- 
gratulatingly.  "  You  have  been  in  vein  this  morning." 

"It  is  fortunate  if  it  is  so,"  replies  he  grudgingly, 
"  for  we  have  large  arrears  of  work  to  make  up." 

"  Have  we  ? "  she  says,  a  little  blankly,  rubbing  her 
cramped  right  finger  and  thumb  ;  "  but — but  not  to- 
day?" 

"  And  why  not  to-day  ?  "  rejoins  he  firmly.  "  I  have 
promised  that  my  *  Essay  upon  the  Law  of  Entail  among 
the  Athenians '  shall  be  in  the  printer's  hands  by  to-mor- 
row, and  it  is  therefore  necessary  that  proofs  should  be 
corrected  before  post-time  to-day." 

"  Not  to-day  !  "  cries  she  feverishly  ;  "  not  to-day  ! " 

The  smile  and  the  short-lived  roses  have  together 


BELINDA.  279 


left  her  face.  She  looks  fagged  and  harried,  but  obsti- 
nate. 

"And  why  not  to-day?"  repeats  he,  regarding  her 
with  slow  displeasure. 

"  You  forget,"  she  says — "  you  seem  to  forget  that  we 
have  a  guest." 

"  She  will,  no  doubt,  provide  herself  with  amusement," 
replies  he  disagreeably  ;  "  she  will,  no  doubt,  amuse  her- 
self perfectly  without  your  aid." 

"  And  I  ? "  she  says  in  a  low  voice,  turning  very 
white,  and  looking  at  him  with  concentrated  dislike  (is  it 
possible  that  she  could  ever  have  pitied  him  ?),  "  how  am 
-Z"to  amuse  myself  ?  does  it  never  occur  to  you  that  I,  too, 
may  wish  to  be  amused  ?  " 

"I  put  no  impediment  in  your  way,"  he  answers 
frostily  ;  "  you  are  at  liberty — with  the  exception  of  the 
hours  during  which  I  am  compelled  to  claim  your  ser- 
vices— to  choose  your  own  pursuits,  your  own  associ- 
ates ! " 

"  Am  I  ?  "  she  says,  hastily  catching  him  up,  while  the 
dismissed  carnation  color  pours  in  flood  back  into  her 
cheeks  again.  "  You  give  me  leave  ?  " 

He  looks  at  her  with  such  unfeigned  and  unadmiring 
astonishment  in  his  cold  eyes,  that  she  turns  away  in  con- 
fusion. 

"  How  long  will  you  want  me  for  ?  "  she  asks  falter- 
ing ;  "  how  many  hours  will  the  correcting  of  these  proofs 
take?" 

"  It  is  impossible  to  say,  exactly,"  replies  he,  tranquilly 
leaving  the  room  ;  satisfied  with  her  acquiescence,  and 
indifferent  as  to  the  spirit  in  which  that  acquiescence  has 
been  given. 

The  afternoon  is  three  hours  old,  and  Belinda  still  sits 
at  her  desk.  The  dew  is  dried,  the  long  sunbeam  has 
stolen  away,  but  though  it  does  not  cheer  her  by  its  visi- 


280  BELINDA. 


ble  presence,  she  is  aware,  by  the  augmented  heat  of  the 
close  room,  that  the  sun  is  beating  hard  and  hotly  on  roof 
and  wall.  And  on  these  thinly-built  houses  it  does  beat 
very  hotly.  At  her  side  lies  a  heap  of  corrected  slips,  but 
before  her  is  piled  another,  scarcely  less  bulky.  She  has 
been  at  work  upon  them  for  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  still 
she  sees  no  end  to  her  toil.  Her  head  aches  with  long 
stooping  ;  she  has  inked  her  tired  fingers,  and  her  eyes 
are  dull  and  dogged.  Now  and  again  the  door-bell  ring- 
ing makes  her  give  a  nervous  start.  Is  it  come  again — 
that  time  of  strained  continuous  listening  ?  those  twenty- 
one  months,  during  which  all  her  life-power  seemed  to 
have  passed  into  her  ears  ? 

It  is  the  hour  when  visitors  may  be  with  the  most 
probability  expected.  But  is  there  not  also  a  probability 
that  they  may  be  sent  away  again  ?  Sometimes,  when 
harder  worked  or  gloomier  spirited  than  usual,  she  has 
bidden  her  servant  deny  her.  Is  it  not  but  too  possible 
that,  seeing  her  close  slavery  of  to-day,  that  servant  may 
take  upon  herself  to  conclude  that  such  is  her  mistress's 
wish  now  also. 

The  idea  throws  her  into  a  fever.  She  does  not  listen. 
She  makes  an  unaccountable  mistake.  Again  the  bell 
rings.  Is  it  her  fancy,  or  has  this  ring  a  different  sound 
from  the  former  ones  ?  Is  there  in  it  a  mixture  of  vio- 
lence and  timidity,  as  of  a  person  who  had  had  to  screw 
up  his  courage  to  ring  at  all  in  the  first  instance,  and  had 
then  overdone  it  ? 

She  writes  on  mechanically,  dully  aware  that  her  hus- 
band is  rebuking  her  for  the  illegibility  of  her  last  words. 
Even  if  the  moral  blows  he  is  giving  her  were  physical 
ones,  she  would  feel  them  none  the  more. 

The  door  opens,  and  the  servant  enters,  with  a  man's 
card  upon  a  salver.  She  scarcely  needs  to  glance  at  it  to 
tell  that  it  is  his  ;  but  for  a  moment  her  pale  lips  can  not 


BELINDA.  281 


frame  the  question  that  has  sprung  to  them  :  "  Has  he 
been  sent  away  ?  " 

"  Is  he  gone  ?  "  she  asks,  stammering,  taking  the  card, 
and,  with  a  senseless,  involuntary  movement,  hiding  it  in 
her  hand. 

"  I  told  him  that  you  were  engaged,  ma'am  ?  "  replies 
the  maid  apologetically  ;  "but  he  asked  me  to  bring  you 
this  card.  Shall  I  say  that  you  are  engaged,  ma'am  ? 

The  Professor  looks  up,  cross  at  the  interruption,  to 
give  a  brief  "  Yes  "  ;  but  his  wife  strikes  athwart  him. 

"Show  him  in,"  she  says,  with  precipitate  decision. 
"Say  that  I  will  be  down  directly  ;  tell  Miss  Churchill." 

She  takes  up  her  quill  again,  as  the  servant  leaves  the 
room,  but  apparently  her  hand  shakes  to  a  degree  that  is 
beyond  her  control ;  for  in  a  moment  a  great  blot  has  de- 
faced the  printed  page. 

"  Pray  be  careful ! "  cries  her  husband  fretfully. 
"  You  have  a  hair  in  your  pen." 

She  throws  it  down,  and  takes  another.  The  room  in 
which  they  are  sitting  is  over  the  drawing-room.  Evi- 
dently he  has  been  ushered  in,  and  Sarah  has  joined  him  ; 
for  there  is  a  murmur  of  voices.  What  are  they  saying  ? 
What  are  they  likely  to  be  saying  ? 

"You  have  spelled  allegorical  with  one  £/"  says  the 
Professor,  in  a  voice  of  resentful  wonder. 

"  Have  I  ?  "  she  answers,  bewildered  and  inattentive. 
"  And  how  many  ought  it  to  have  ?  " 

The  voices  have  grown  more  distinctly  audible.  They 
have  left  the  drawing-room  ;  it  is  obvious  that  Sarah  is 
taking  him  out  into  the  garden — the  pleasant,  little,  cool 
garden,  with  its  blackbird  and  its  broom-bush,  and  its 
bees.  She  draws  a  hot,  long,  envious  breath  at  the 
thought. 

"  A  child  of  five  years  old  would  have  been  ashamed 
to  perpetrate  so  gross  a  blunder  ! "  resumes  he,  taking 


282  BELINDA. 


the  sheet  from  before  her,  and  indignantly  holding  it  up 
for  reprobation. 

She  heaves  a  heavy,  furious  sigh,  and  a  somber  light 
comes  into  her  great,  gloomy  eyes.  From  the  garden  is 
heard  a  peal  of  laughter.  Sarah  is  always  laughing.  It 
is  well  to  be  merry  sometimes,  but  Sarah  is  too  much  of 
a  buffoon. 

"  In  errors  so  palpable,  it  is  difficult  not  to  see  inten- 
tion," continues  he,  exasperated  by  a  silence  that  is  so 
plainly  not  repentance  —  a  silence  which  she  still  ob- 
serves. 

Another  burst  of  laughter  from  the  garden  —  not 
Sarah's  this  time  ;  a  man's  wholesome,  unfeigned  mirth. 
He,  too,  can  laugh,  can  he  ? 

"  I  should  really  be  disposed  to  recommend  a  return 
to  the  writing-master,"  says  Mr.  Forth,  still  ironically, 
regarding  the  blurred  page. 

For  all  answer,  she  rises  to  her  feet,  and  throws  her 
pen  with  violence  down  upon  the  floor. 

"Your  machine  has  broken  down  for  to-day,"  she 
says,  with  a  pale,  rebellious  smile.  "  Legible  or  illegible, 
writing-master  or  no  writing-master,  I  shall  write  not  one 
word  more  to-day  ! " 


CHAPTER  V. 

IT  is  Miss  Churchill's  maxim  always  to  make  herself 
as  comfortable,  under  any  given  circumstances,  as  those 
circumstances  will  permit ;  nor  has  she  failed,  on  the 
present  occasion,  to  live  up  to  her  own  precept.  Beneath 
the  garden  wall,  where  the  shade  spreads  coolest,  a  fur 
rug,  filched  from  the  drawing-room  floor,  is  extended  ; 
cushions,  unlawfully  thieved  from  the  drawing-room 
sofa,  mollify  the  hardness  of  back  of  the  garden-chairs. 


BELINDA.  283 


Upon  the  unlikely  hypothesis  of  her  conversation  running 
short,  she  has  unearthed  all  the  novels  she  can  find.  At 
her  feet  the  dogs  alternately  sleep,  and  gnash  their  teeth 
— rarely  successful — at  the  flies.  In  the  sun,  close  by, 
stands  the  parrot's  gilded  cage  ;  so  that,  if  other  resources 
fail  her,  she  may  fall  back  upon  his  loquacity.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  dogs,  at  her  feet  also  lies  Rivers,  unworthily 
occupied  in  tickling  the  inside  of  the  dozing  Slutty's  ear 
with  a  flower-stalk.  This  is  the  tranquil  Arcadian  picture 
that  salutes  Mrs.  Forth's  eyes  as  she  issues  from  the 
house.  He  has  his  back  turned  toward  her  !  He  has  not 
cared  enough  for  her  coming,  even  to  place  himself  so  as 
to  watch  for  it !  How  is  she  to  know  that  it  was  only  a 
moment  ago,  in  obedience  to  Sarah's  orders,  and  in  dread 
of  the  remembered  penetration  of  her  eyes,  that  he  had 
adopted  his  present  position  ?  How  cool  they  look ! 
How  much  at  ease  !  What  a  pity  to  disturb  them  ! 
After  all  she  might  as  well  have  finished  the  proofs.  As 
she  draws  near  them,  walking  so  softly  over  the  turf  that 
they  are  not  immediately  aware  of  her,  a  new  burst  of 
laughter  fills  and  grates  upon  her  ears. 

"  You  seem  very  merry,"  she  says  dryly. 

Sarah  exhibits  no  surprise — as  why  indeed  should  she  ? 
— at  her  sister's  advent.  With  her  head  thrown  back 
comfortably  over  her  chair,  she  finishes  her  laugh  luxuri- 
ously out,  but  of  Rlvers's  mirth,  Belinda  need  no  longer 
complain.  There  is  not  much  that  could  be  called  mirth 
in  the  face  that — suddenly  leaping  to  his  feet — he  turns 
toward  her.  What  a  death's-head  she  must  be  to  work 
such  an  instantaneous  transformation  in  him  ! 

"  You  seem  to  be  very  merry,"  she  repeats. 

She  is  conscious  of  the  resentful  dryness  of  her  tone  ; 
of  the  fagged  flush  upon  her  cheeks  ;  and  the  sullenness 
that  she  has  not  quite  been  able  to  banish  from  her  eyes  ; 
but  she  is  as  powerless  to  correct  the  one  as  the  others. 


284  BELINDA. 


What  has  he  done  to  deserve  that  tone  ?  Beneath  it  he 
stands  tongue-tied. 

"  May  not  I  know  what  your  joke  was  ? "  she  says, 
struggling  not  very  successfully  for  a  greater  amenity  of 
manner  ;  "  why  should  not  it  amuse  me,  too  ?  " 

"It — it  was  nothing  much!"  he  answers  deprecat- 
ingly ;  "I  do  not  know  why  I  laughed  ;  it  was  only — " 
looking  unhappy  and  ashamed,  "  that  Miss  Churchill  was 
telling  me  that  Punch  had  once  been  engaged  to  the  par- 
rot ;  and  that  it  was  broken  off  because  she  bit  his  tail 
to  the  bone  ! " 

There  is  such  a  contrast  between  the  very  mild  wag- 
gery of  this  anecdote,  and  the  deep  humiliation  of  the 
tone  in  which  he  narrates  it,  that  Sarah  sets  off  laughing 
helplessly  again ;  but  not  a  muscle  of  Belinda's  face 
moves. 

"  That  respectable  old  jest,"  she  says,  with  a  slight 
shrug  ;  "  it  has  been  for  many  years  a  family  Joe  Miller  !  " 

"  It  was  not  a  Joe  Miller  to  him ! "  replies  Sarah, 
standing  up  in  indistinct  defense — indistinct  through 
much  laughing — of  her  pleasantry  ;  "  he  may  pretend 
now  that  he  did  not  like  it — but  he  did  ! " 

Belinda  sits  down  ;  but  the  cloud  still  lowers  on  her 
brow.  To  her  own  heart  she  says  that  she  does  well  to 
be  angry.  That  here,  for  the  first  time  face  to  face  with 
the  tragedy  of  their  two  lives,  he  should  be  in  a  condition 
to  be  genuinely  amused  by  so  miserable  a  jest — by  any 
jest  !  Nor  does  the  crushing  of  his  merriment  please  her 
any  better.  She  then  is  the  wet  blanket  who  stifles  his 
jollity.  Times  are  indeed  changed  !  If  she  were  to  leave 
them,  no  doubt  the  peals  of  laughter  would  at  once  break 
out  afresh.  But  for  the  present  they  are  effectually 
stilled.  Painfully  and  sorely  conscious  of  this,  she  makes 
another  difficult  effort  to  recover  her  good  temper. 

"I  think  I  am  losing  my  sense  of  humor,"  she  says 


BELINDA.  285 


awkwardly ;  "  it  must  be  the  effect  of  Oxbridge  air. 
Punch,  will  you,  too,  lose  your  sense  of  humor  ?  " 

She  has  lifted  the  lively  little  dog  up  on  her  knees  ; 
and  is  half  hiding  her  hot  face  against  his. 

"  He  is  losing  something  else,  is  not  he  ?  "  says  Riv- 
ers, made  bold  by  her  gentle  tone  diffidently  to  draw  a 
little  nigher  to  her,  and  to  raise  his  eyes  in  painful  ques- 
tioning to  hers. 

As  he  speaks,  he  lifts  his  hand  and  touches  the  locket 
habitually  worn  round  the  neck,  and  as  habitually  tried 
to  be  scratched  off  by  Punch  ;  and  from  which  a  lock  of 
hair  is  at  present  obviously  escaping. 

"  Why,  Punch,  do  you  wear  locks  of  hair  ?  "  asks  the 
young  man,  laughing  nervously.  "  Whose  is  it  ?  Slutty's, 
let  us  hope  !  " 

"  It  is  always  coming  out,"  interposes  Sarah  in  a  dis- 
gusted voice  ;  "  the  fact  is,"  lazily  drawing  herself  up 
into  a  sitting  posture,  and  looking  round  explanatorily, 
"  that  people  have  a  way  of  giving  me  locks  of  their  hair 
— I  am  sure  I  do  not  know  why — and  as  I  can  not  possi- 
bly wear  them  all,  Punch  is  good  enough  to  wear  some 
of  them  for  me  !  Punch  has  worn  a  great  deal  of  hair  in 
his  day,  have  not  you,  Punch  ?  " 

As  she  speaks,  she  calls  the  dog  to  her  ;  and  becomes 
absorbed  in  the  contemplation  of  his  jewelry. 

"Is  it  German  or  English  hair,  should  you  think?" 
asks  Rivers,  almost  under  his  breath. 

There  is  a  smile  on  his  face  as  he  puts  this  question  ; 
but  a  smile  with  whose  mirth  she  need  not  quarrel.  In  a 
moment  how  the  Hussars  and  Uhlans  are  clanking  round 
her  again  !  How  the  soft  wind  is  pelting  her  with  cherry- 
flowers  !  How  the  old  Schloss  is  towering  up  against  the 
German  sky  !  She  can  not  answer  him  ;  but  those  few 
words  seem  to  have  given  them  back  something  of  their 
former  intimacy. 


286  BELINDA. 


"  Now  whose  is  it  ?  "  says  Sarah  reflectively,  having 
taken  out  the  little  lock,  and  being  now  contemplatively 
eying  it  with  her  head  on  one  side  ;  "  what  a  memory  I 
have  !  Belinda,  can  you  help  me  ?  whose  is  this  lock  of 
hair  of  Punch's  ?  Oh,  but  it  must  have  been  since  your 
day ;  it  is  not  unlike  yours "  (turning  to  Rivers,  and 
coolly  setting  the  little  tendril  against  his  hair  to  compare 
them.  "  Did  you  ever  give  me  a  lock  of  your  hair  ?  " 

He  turns  with  a  start.  He  has  been  unwisely  allow- 
ing himself  to  drift  into  one  of  his  old  speculations,  ~as  to 
whether  any  woman's  ear  had  ever  sat  so  daintily  close  to 
her  head  as  does  that  of  the  wife  of  Professor  Forth. 

"  A  lock  of  my  hair  !  "  he  cries,  jumping  up,  and  fall- 
ing on  his  knees  before  Sarah,  with  an  air  of  exagger- 
ated playfulness  ;  "  if  I  have  not,  I  am  quite  ready  to 
supply  the  omission  ;  whereabout  will  you  have  it  from  ? 
passing  his  hand  over  his  own  crisp  curls.  "  May  I  take 
your  scissors,  Mrs.  Forth  ?  " 

It  is  the  first  time  that  he  has  so  addressed  her.  It  is 
with  untold  difficulty  that  the  name  crosses  his  lips,  and 
consequently  he  enunciates  it  with  unusual  distinctness. 
It  is  in  reality  a  cudgeling  that  he  is  administering  to 
himself  for  his  late  lapse,  but  to  her  it  seems  a  wanton 
cruelty. 

"  May  I  take  your  scissors,  Mrs.  Forth  ?  " 

Mrs.  Forth's  head  is,  however,  bent  so  low  over  her 
work-basket,  that  apparently  she  does  not  hear.  Behind 
the  shelter  of  that  convenient  receptacle  for  tapes  and 
needles,  her  hands  are  trembling  and  writhing.  At  Dres- 
den would  he  have  talked  even  in  joke  of  giving  Sarah  a 
lock  of  his  hair  ?  Why,  he  never  even  heard  her  when 
she  spoke  to  him  !  Happily  for  Belinda,  at  this  point, 
she  is  summoned  to  the  house  on  some  trifling  errand, 
which  detains  her  for  ten  minutes — ten  minutes  in  which 
she  is  able  to  resume  some  hold  upon  herself  ;  and  it  is 


BELINDA.  287 


well  that  it  is  so,  for  the  sight  which  greets  her  is  one 
not  calculated  to  promote  her  equanimity.  Sarah  has 
abandoned  her  lazy  reclining,  and  is  sitting  up,  and  hold- 
ing Rivers's  hand  ;  not  indeed,  when  one  comes  to  ob- 
serve closely,  in  any  very  lover-like  manner,  but  as  one 
who  is  examining  it  with  an  air  of  the  liveliest  interest 
and  curiosity. 

"  I  should  be  ashamed  to  own  such  a  hand,"  she  is 
saying,  with  her  accustomed  candor  ;  "  it  is  like  a  work- 
man's hand." 

"  But  I  am  a  workman,"  he  answers  bluntly. 

And  then  he  is  suddenly  aware  of  Belinda's  presence, 
and  snatches  it  away. 

"  It  really  is  quite  a  curiosity  in  its  way,"  says  Sarah 
in  a  pleased  voice  ;  "  it  is  as  hard  and  horny  as  a  day-la- 
borer's ;  do  show  it  to  Belinda  !  " 

He  looks  toward  her,  hesitating  and  uncertain.  She 
has  resumed  her  former  seat  and  her  work-basket. 

"  Do  !  "  she  says,  trying  to  speak  with  her  newly  sum- 
moned tranquillity,  and  he  holds  it  out  to  her  palm  upward. 

It  is  a  beautiful  hand  still,  shapely  and  vigorous,  but 
on  it  are  disfiguring  evidences  of  hard,  coarse  toil.  There 
is  nothing  particularly  affecting  in  a  work-roughened 
palm  ;  it  is  a  condition  to  which  are  subjected  the  hands 
of  ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred  of  the  human  race  ; 
and  yet,  as  she  looks  at  it,  she  has  much  ado  to  prevent 
the  tears  from  springing  to  her  eyes. 

"  You  know,"  he  says,  "  I  told  you  that  I  could  not 
stand  the  confinement  of  an  office-life  ! " 

"We  know?"  cries  Sarah,  pricking  up  her  ears. 
"  You  told  us  ?  What  do  you  mean  ?  When  have  you 
ever  had  the  chance  of  telling  us  ?  " 

He  stops — staggered  and  white.  He  had  forgotten 
the  presence  of  an  auditor.  Nor  is  Belinda  in  a  plight  to 
help  him. 


288  BELINDA. 


"I  mean,"  he  says,  floundering,  "that  I — I  intended 
to  tell  you  ;  and  so,"  hurriedly  resuming  his  narrative, 
"  I — I  went  as  an  ordinary  hand  in  the  iron-works  ;  and 
was  set  to  work  at  the  puddling-furnace." 

"  The  puddling-furnace  ! "  cries  Surah,  delighted  with 
the  sound  ;  "  and  what  is  a  puddling-furnace,  pray  ? " 
repeating  the  phrase  with  emphatic  relish. 

"  A  puddling-furnace  is  a  furnace  where  the  pig-iron 
from  the  smelting-f urnace  is  worked  about  at  a  great  heat 
with  iron  rakes — rabbles,  they  call  them — and  I  had  the 
honor  and  pleasure,"  with  a  shy  laugh,  "  of  working  one 
of  these  rakes,  until  the  iron  became  malleable. " 

Belinda's  pretense  of  work  has  dropped  unheeded  on 
the  grass  beside  her. 

"  H — m  !  "  says  Sarah,  still  agreeably  interested  ;  "  no 
wonder  that  your  hands  are  not  so  pretty  as  they  might 
be.  And  was  it  very  hard  work  ?  " 

"  It  was  not  exactly  child's  play,"  he  answers  dryly  ; 
"  but  they  gave  us  high  wages ;  they  were  glad  to  get 
hold  of  a  good  strong  chap  like  me.  We  had  need  to  be 
pretty  strong ! " 

"  And  did  you  work  at  it  all  day  ?  " 

"We  were  relieved  every  six  or  eight  hours.  We 
could  not  have  stood  it  longer  on  account  of  the  heat ; 
that  was  pretty  bad  ! " 

He  pauses  a  moment,  passing  his  disfigured  hand,  half 
in  absence,  half  in  kindness,  along  Slutty's  roomy  back  ; 
then  adds  : 

"  It  is  the  heat  that  does  it !  As  a  rule,  puddlers  do 
not  live  long  ;  it  is  the  heat  that  does  it." 

He  says  it  with  complete  simplicity,  neither  expecting 
nor  wishing  for  compassion  ;  as  if  to  spend  eight  hours  a 
day  in  a  puddling-furnace  were  the  natural  and  ordinary 
sequel  of  an  education  at  Eton  and  Oxbridge. 

So  this  is  how  he  has  spent  the  twenty  months,  passed 


BELINDA.  289 


by  her  in  listening  for  the  postman's  knock — in  this  life- 
shortening,  mind-deadening  brute  toil !  Well,  even  so, 
he  has  had  the  best  of  it ! 

There  is  a  silence  of  some  moments'  duration,  broken 
by  Sarah,  whose  sharp  ear  has  caught  a  sound  of  foot- 
steps. 

"  Ha ! "  she  cries,  with  animation,  "  here  comes  my 
little  flock  ;  and  as  ill-luck  will  have  it,  I  have  forgotten 
every  one  of  their  names.  Belinda  !  quick  !  help  me  ! — 
which  is  which  ?  " 

Belinda  lifts  her  downcast  eyes  :  lifts  them  to  see 
three  young  gentlemen,  whom  apparently  the  parlor- 
maid, with  that  contempt  for  undergraduates  inherent  in 
the  native  Oxbridge  mind,  has  left  to  announce  them- 
selves, timorously  advancing.  They  are  evidently  not 
very  easy  in  their  minds,  and  are  somewhat  obviously 
each  pushing  the  other  to  the  front. 

Clearly,  Professor  Forth's  house  is  no  habitual  lounge 
for  undergraduates.  A  movement  of  irrational  relief 
thrills  through  Rivers's  heart  as  he  realizes  this. 

"  They  must  indeed  be  fond  of  you,  Sarah,  to  have 
faced  me  ! "  says  Mrs.  Forth,  with  a  dry  smile.  "  How 
frightened  they  look  !  as  frightened,"  with  one  quick 
glance  at  Rivers,  "  as  you  used  to  be  !  " 

She  does  not  pause  to  see  the  effect  of  her  words  ; 
but  rising,  walks  with  her  long  slow  step  to  meet  her 
guests. 

"  I  do  not  wonder  that  they  are  frightened,"  says 
Sarah,  in  a  stage  aside  to  the  young  man.  "  Does  not 
she  look  as  if  she  were  going  to  ask  them  to  what  she 
owes  the  pleasure  of  their  visit  ?  If  I  do  not  fly  to  the 
rescue,  even  now  they  will  turn  tail  and  run  !  " 

But  Sarah  for  once  is  mistaken.  They  have  no  desire 
to  turn  tail  and  run.  It  is  doubtful,  indeed,  whether,  on 
their  homeward  way,  and  over  their  evening  cigars,  their 
13 


290  BELINDA. 


limited  and  artless  vocabulary  of  encomium  is  more 
strained  to  find  epithets  of  approval  for  Miss  Churchill 
than  for  her  austerer  sister.  But  indeed,  to-day,  Belinda 
is  not  austere. 

"  Why  should  she  snub  them  ?  "  she  asks  herself  sadly ; 
"  has  not  she  had  enough  of  snubbing  people  for  all  her 
lifetime  ?  " 

And  so  she  is  kind  to  them — too  kind,  Rivers  begins 
presently  to  think  with  a  jealous  pang,  as  he  sees  her 
pouring  out  tea  for  them  with  her  all-lovely  hands-;  en- 
dowing them  with  her  heavenly  smile  ;  lightening  their 
darkness  with  her  starry  eyes.  Nor  is  he,  even  yet,  wise 
enough  in  love's  lore,  or  coxcomb  enough  to  suspect  that 
it  is  he  himself — he  sitting  by,  apparently  neglected  and 
overlooked — who  has  lit  the  eyes  and  carved  the  smile. 

Sarah  is  very  kind,  too  ;  but  they  are  rather  hurt  at 
the  hopeless  muddle  into  which  she  has  got  their  names. 

By-and-by,  when  well  be-tead  and  be-caked,  they  are 
embarked  upon  a  game  of  tennis,  and  the  sound  of  call- 
ings and  laughings,  of  balls  struck  and  racquets  striking, 
breaks  the  Arcadian  silence  of  that  hitherto  virgin  in- 
closure — Professor  Forth's  tennis-ground.  It  is  too  small 
to  admit  of  more  than  one  set  at  a  time  ;  and  Belinda,  as 
a  good  hostess,  despite  the  warm  urgencies  of  the  now 
tamed  and  happy  strangers,  retires  in  favor  of  her  visit- 
ors. It  boots  little  to  inquire  whether  the  sacrifice  cost 
her  much. 

"  Do  you  play  ?  "  cries  Sarah  nonchalantly,  flourishing 
her  racquet  under  Rivers's  nose.  "  No  ?  Ah  ! "  with  an 
impudent  smile,  "  you  are  more  at  home  with  your  rake  !  " 

Though  it  is  morally  impossible  that  they  could  have 
understood  it,  both  Bellairs  and  Stanley  are  contemptible 
enough  to  laugh  at  this  sally  ;  a  fact  which  would  no 
doubt  have  made  Rivers  disposed  to  punch  their  heads, 
had  he  heard  them  ;  but  the  jest  and  its  prosperity  both 


BELINDA.  291 


fell  upon  deaf  ears.  Sight  and  hearing  are  stopped  by 
the  anxious  fear  : 

Is  she  displeased  with  him  for  refusing  to  play? 
Ought  he  to  have  played  ?  Will  she  now  expect  him  to 
go  ?  At  parting,  will  she  say  any  word  of  further  meet- 
ing ? 

A  lump  rises  in  his  throat.  Not  presuming  again  to 
take  up  his  place  on  the  grass  at  her  feet — though,  after 
all,  it  is  a  privilege  that  no  one  grudges  even  to  the  dogs 
— he  stands,  uncertain  and  unhappy,  before  her.  If  she 
so  wills  it,  this  must  be  the  end.  Nor  does  she  seem  in 
any  hurry  to  put  him  out  of  his  incertitude. 

Upon  her  the  day's  earlier  mood  is  returning.  In 
what  life  -  giving  whiffs  comes  the  kindly  wind  !  Did 
ever  homely-coated  bird  say  such  sweet  things  as  does 
the  blackbird  from  among  the  cherry-boughs  ?  and  the 
little  vulgar  villa-garden  has  grown  like  that  of  which 
Keats  spake  : 

"  Where  the  daisies  are  rose-scented, 
And  the  rose  herself  has  got 
Perfume  that  on  earth  is  not !  " 

He  is  here  before  her,  waiting  one  lightest  sign  from  her 
to  lie  down  at  her  feet  and  be  trampled  on.  Is  it  any 
wonder  that,  being  a  woman,  she  lets  three  minutes 
elapse  before  she  gives  that  sign  ? 

At  the  end  of  that  time,  "  Are  you  at  it  still  ?  "  she 
asks  abruptly. 

It  is  half  an  hour  since  the  subject  was  dropped,  and 
a  dozen  others  have  intervened  between  ;  yet  he  seems  to 
have  no  difficulty  in  understanding  at  once  to  what  her 
speech  alludes. 

"  No,"  he  answers,  with  a  sigh  of  relief  (for  it  is  evi- 
dent that  had  she  wished  to  be  rid  of  him,  she  would  not 
have  introduced  a  new,  or  resumed  an  old,  topic),  taking 


292  BELINDA. 


possession  as  lie  speaks  of  Sarah's  forsaken  chair  ;  "  I  am 
promoted  to  be  foreman." 

He  pauses  for  her  to  comment  or  congratulate  ;  but 
she  does  neither.  She  only  stitches  feverishly  on. 

"It  struck  me  that  the  same  thing  might  be  done 
with  much  less  expense  of  labor  by  machinery,"  he  con- 
tinues, with  the  hurry  of  one  who  has  no  assurance  that 
he  is  not  wearying  his  listener  ;  "  and  in  consequence  of 
this — this  invention  of  mine,  which  our  firm  has  taken  up, 
I  have  been  promoted  to  the  rank  of  foreman." 

He  stops  so  decidedly  that  she  is  compelled  to  make 
an  observation  of  some  kind. 

"  And  in  due  time,  of  course,  you  will  be  taken  into 
partnership,  and  marry  your  master's  daughter,"  she  says 
with  a  difficult  flippancy. 

The  blood  rushes  to  his  face.  He  had  expected  a 
kinder  commentary.  Surely  no  jest  ever  so  ill-became 
her  whom,  in  his  eyes,  all  becomes.  There  is  a  silence. 
The  sun's  rays  are  less  vertical,  and  the  dogs  have  awoke. 
Punch  indeed,  under  the  mistaken  idea  of  being  obliging, 
is  officiously  retrieving  the  tennis-balls,  and  being  warm- 
ly slapped  by  the  heated  players  for  his  good-nature. 

"  Well,"  says  Belinda,  with  nervous  asperity  in  her 
tone,  "  is  there  nothing  more  ?  go  on." 

"  Others  have  invented  machines  of  the  same  kind," 
he  continues  spiritlessly,  for  her  jest  has  taken  the  heart 
out  of  his  narration,  "  but  they  have  turned  out  either 
complete  failures,  or  only  very  partial  successes  ;  if 
mine  has  better  luck,  our  firm  holds  out  hopes  of  taking 
out  a  patent,  and  giving  me  a  small  share  of  the  busi- 
ness." 

"  Did  not  I  tell  you  so  ?  "  cries  she,  laughing  rather 
stridently  ;  "  why,  my  prophecy  is  already  half-way  to- 
ward fulfillment." 

Again  his  face  burns,  but  he  deigns  her  no  answer. 


BELINDA.  293 


If  she  can  stoop  to  so  unworthy  a  merriment,  she  shall  at 
least  enjoy  it  alone. 

"  It  is  evidently  all  for  the  best,"  he  says,  trying  to 
catch  her  callous  tone  ;  "  it  seems  that  I  have  a  kind  of 
turn  for  mechanics.  It  was  news  to  me  that  I  had  a  turn 
for  anything  convertible  into  money  ;  if — if  things  had 
gone  smoothly,  I  might  have  lain  down  in  my  grave 
without  finding  out  where  the  bent  of  my  genius  lay  : 
and  that  would  have  been  a  thousand  pities,  would  not 
it?" 

He  ends  with  a  laugh.  Her  mirth,  which  had  offended 
him,  has  long  died  :  nor  has  she  any  answer  ready  to  his 
question.  Her  long  arms  (even  arms  can  look  sad)  lie 
listless  on  her  lap,  and  her  great  veiled  eyes  see  visions. 
Vanished  from  before  them  are  the  little  square  garden 
and  the  tennis-players.  They  see  only  his  future  life-path 
stretching  before  her  ;  his  life  growing  ever  fuller,  fuller, 
fuller  of  busy,  prospering,  eager  work,  with  ever  less  and 
less  room  in  it  for  the  gap  left  by  her.  By-and-by  that 
gap  will  close  altogether.  The  sooner  the  better  for 
him  ! 

But  for  her  f  Over  her  there  pours  a  rush  of  frantic 
longing  to  tear  it  wide  ;  to  keep  it  ever,  ever  yawning. 
But  it  will  not  so  yawn  always.  It  will  close  so  that 
scarce  a  scar  will  be  left  to  show  where  it  once  was.  He 
is  fond  of  his  work  already.  In  how  different  a  spirit  he 
addresses  himself  to  it  from  that  in  which,  sulky  and  half- 
hearted, she  turns  to  her  hated  toils  !  A  sense  of  injury 
and  offense  against  him  rises  in  her  heart.  He  can  never 
have  suffered  as  she  has  suffered  ;  his  meat  has  never 
been  ashes,  nor  his  drink  tears  ! 

"It  is  clear  that  you  are  Fortune's  favorite,"  she  says 
in  a  hard  voice  ;  "  I  congratulate  you." 

"  Thank  you,"  he  answers,  deeply  wounded  ;  "  you 
have  hit  upon  the  exact  phrase  that  describes  me." 


294  BELINDA. 


There  is  such  a  sharp  pain  in  his  tone,  that,  though 
she  has  been  anxiously  averting  her  eyes  from  him,  they 
must  need  seek  his  in  apology. 

"Forgive  me,"  she  says  with  a  remorseful  watery 
smile  ;  "  you  know  that  I  was  always  bitter  ;  and  some- 
how," her  lip  trembling,  "  time  has  not  improved  me  !  " 

Seeing  the  sorrowful  twitching  of  that  lovely  and  be- 
loved mouth,  he  loses  his  head  for  a  moment. 

"  It  would  have  been  nothing  from  any  one  else,"  he 
says,  murmuring  under  his  breath  ;  "  but  it  came  ill  from 
you." 

She  offers  no  denial.  Only  she  drops  her  eyes  ;  and  a 
stealing  selfish  sweetness  laps  her  senses.  Not  yet,  then, 
is  the  gap  filled. 

"Belinda!"  cries  the  voice  of  Sarah,  suddenly  strik- 
ing in,  high  and  mirthful  ;  of  Sarah,  returned,  hot  and 
boastful,  from  her  finished  game.  "  Cheer  up  !  I  have 
some  good  news  for  you  ! " 

Belinda  gives  a  great  start. 

"  Have  you  indeed  ?  "  she  says  hurriedly  ;  "  so  much 
the  better  for  me." 

"Mr.  Stanley  and  Mr.  Bellairs  and  Mr. -"  (she 

has  not  yet  mastered  the  name  of  her  third  young  friend, 
but  audaciously  mumbles  something  that  is  to  stand  for 
it),  "  and  I  have  concocted  a  little  junket  for  to-morrow. 
If  it  is  not  your  birthday,  it  ought  to  be  !  You  are  going 
to  be  taken  on  the  river,  and  treated  to  cakes  and  ale  at 
a  pot-house,  and  towed  back  by  moonlight.  Come  now, 
what  do  you  say  ?  are  not  you  grateful  ?  " 

Belinda  laughs  nervously. 

"  Grateful  ?  of  course  I  am  !  " 

She  has  risen  from  her  chair  and  begun  to  walk  about 
upon  the  sward.  Perhaps  by  changing  her  position  she 
may  the  sooner  be  free  of  the  heady  fumes  of  this  man- 
dragora  that  she  has  been  drinking  ;  may  the  more  easi- 


BELINDA.  295 


ly  shake  off  this  divine  drowsiness,  that  yet  leads  to 
death. 

"  It  strikes  me  that  you  are  not  listening  to  a  word  I 
say,"  says  Sarah,  darting  a  dry  look  from  one  to  the  other 
of  the  culprits. 

"Not  listening?"  repeats  Belinda,  with  a  feverish 
gayety  ;  "  am  I  not  ?  Judge  for  yourself  whether  I  am 
listening  !  I  am  to  be  taken  on  the  river,  and  treated  to 
cakes  and  ale,  and  towed  home  by  moonlight ;  come, 
now  ! " 

"  Well,  is  not  it  a  nice  plan  ?  are  not  you  grateful  to 
us  ?  "  cries  Sarah,  again  appeased  and  jubilant. 

"  It  would  be  delightful ! "  replies  Mrs.  Forth,  still 
with  that  same  factitious  liveliness.  "  I  should  enjoy  it 
of  all  things  ;  I  am  so  fond  of  the  water,  only —  " 

She  stops  abruptly ;  her  rebellious  eye  wandering  to 
where  Rivers — he,  too,  has  risen — stands  aloof,  out  in  the 
cold  ;  obviously  uninvited,  unincluded  in  the  joyous  pro- 
gramme. 

"  Only  Menander,  I  suppose,"  says  Sarah,  making  a 
face  ;  "really,  at  his  age,  he  ought  to  be  able  to  shift  for 
himself  for  one  day." 

"  It  is  not  Menander,"  replies  Belinda,  with  embar- 
rassment ;  "  as  it  happens,  I  have  a  whole  holiday  to- 
morrow. Mr.  Forth  is  going  to  London  for  the  day,  to 
take  the  chair  at  an  archaeological  meeting." 

"  Only  what,  then  ?  "  looking  at  her  with  a  point-blank 
directness  that  puts  her  out  of  countenance. 

"  Only,"  she  says,  and  stops  again,  irresolute. 

Reason  is  pouring  her  cold  douche  over  her,  and  ask- 
ing :  "  Why  should  he  be  invited  ?  What  sense  would 
there  be  in  it  ?  unreason  rather,  and  madness.  Has  not 
she  supped  enough  of  hemlock  for  one  while?  With 
how  many  dreary  days  and  weeks  of  flat  revolt  and  salt- 
less  labor  will  she  already  have  to  expiate  this  one 


296  BELINDA. 


drunken  hour  ?  Let  this  be  the  end  !  let  this  be  the 
end  ! " 

"  Only  nothing,"  she  says,  with  awkward  gayety. 

"  I  wonder  why  you  hesitated  ?  "  asks  Sarah  inquisi- 
tively. "  I  can  not  fancy  ever  hesitating  when  there  is 
any  question  of  amusing  one's  self.  Do  not  you  often  go 
on  the  water  ?  " 

"  Never  ;  I  am  never  asked  ;  you  never  ask  me,"  turn- 
ing with  a  sort  of  spurious  coquetry  to  the  enraptured 
young  men. 

"  We  should  be  only  too  delighted,"  cries  Bellairs  ; 
he,  by  right  of  his  one  minute's  priority  of  introduction, 
having  constituted  himself  spokesman  and  old  acquaint- 
ance;  "only  we — we — were  afraid,  we — we — did  not 
venture  ! " 

"  You  must  venture  for  the  future,  then,"  replies  she, 
with  a  flighty  laugh.  "  You  must  take  me  often  !  I 
want  to  go  !  I  want  to  enjoy  myself  ! " 

Her  eye  sparkles,  and  her  cheek  flames,  as  she  speaks. 
Is  it  indeed  the  expectation  of  pleasure  that  has  set  them 
both  so  bravely  alight  ?  She  throws  herself  with  such  a 
fury  of  interest  into  all  the  details  of  the  excursion,  that 
she  has  hardly  time  or  attention  to  spare  for  bidding 
good-by  to  Rivers,  who  presently  comes  up  to  make  his 
adieux. 

"Are  you  going?"  she  asks  indifferently.  "Good- 
by." 

As  she  speaks,  she  lays  for  one  instant  her  hot  dry 
hand  in  his  cold  one.  She  would  have  bidden  even  Bel- 
lairs  good-by  more  warmly.  None  but  herself  knows  the 
strength  of  the  temptation  that  assails  her  to  clutch  that 
poor  slighted  hand  before  them  all  ;  to  lay  it  on  her  mis- 
erable heart ;  to  drown  it  in  her  tears,  smother  it  with 
her  kisses,  and  pay  it  any  other  tribute  of  extravagant 
passionate  homage. 


BELINDA.  297 


Least  of  all  does  he  suspect  it,  as  he  walks  away,  de- 
cently strangling  his  sick  despair  till  he  is  out  of  sight. 
No  sooner  is  he  gone,  and  the  need  for  defense  ended, 
than  she  throws  away  her  weapons.  Her  attention  flags 
so  obviously  ;  her  manner  relapses  so  patently  from  its 
short  summer  of  animation  into  its  normal  frost,  that  it 
dawns  at  length  upon  the  three  boys'  intelligence  that 
they  are  running  a  good  chance  of  outstaying  their  wel- 
come, and  forfeiting  the  place  that  they  flatter  themselves 
they  have  won  in  Mrs.  Forth's  esteem.  They  take  leave 
as  precipitately  as  Sarah's  many  last  words,  commands, 
espibgleries,  jokes,  will  let  them.  She  accompanies  them 
to  the  door ;  and  Belinda,  since  it  is  more  tolerable  to 
move  about  than  to  sit  still,  accompanies  her. 

The  sisters  lean  on  the  low  iron  gate,  and  the  bland, 
spring  evening  wraps  her  arms  around  them. 

Belinda  has  lifted  her  gloomy  eyes  to  the  laburnum 
gloriously  pendent  above  her  head.  Which  happy  cluster 
was  it  that  brushed  against  his  hair  last  night  in  the  star- 
light ? 

"  He  is  not  gone  yet !  "  says  Sarah,  in  that  voice  of 
shrewd,  dry  sense  which  would  surprise  the  admirers  of 
her  butterfly  phase,  could  they  hear  it.  "What  is  he 
hanging  about  for  ?  " 

She  has  desisted  rather  suddenly  from  her  occupation 
of  kissing  her  fingers  to  her  three  adorers,  who,  reluctant 
to  lose  one  of  her  last  glances,  are  backing  down  the 
road  away  from  her.  Belinda's  heart  gives  a  bound. 
Not  quite  the  end  yet,  then  !  She  has  done  her  best ! 
Her  conscience  is  clear  !  but  it  is  not  quite  the  end  yet, 
then  !  Can  she  be  blamed  because  he  still  loiters  near  ? 

"I  suppose  the  road  is  public  property,"  she  says 
doggedly  ;  but  her  voice  shakes. 

"  You  did  not  ask  him  to  join  us  to-morrow,  did  you  ?  " 
asks  Sarah,  with  dry  rapidity. 


298  BELINDA. 


"  No." 

"  Ah  !  "  (drawing  a  long  breath),  "that  is  right ! " 

"  It  would  have  been  the  merest  civility  to  have  in- 
vited him,"  says  Mrs.  Forth  sullenly.  A  frown  less  of 
ill-humor  than  of  perplexed  uneasiness  has  gathered  on 
Miss  Churchill's  satin  brow. 

"  It  is  no  case  of  civility  between  you  and  him,"  she 
says  curtly. 

The  flush  on  Belinda's  fagged  face  grows  hotter. 

"  I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand  what  you  mean,5'  she 
says  angrily. 

"I  mean,"  replies  Sarah  shrewdly,  and  enunciating 
with  the  greatest  clearness,  "  that  discretion  is  the  better 
part  of  valor — that  is  what  I  mean  ! " 

"  Thank  you  !  "  cries  the  other  fiercely,  and  trembling 
like  a  leaf  from  head  to  foot.  "  Thank  you  for  us  both 
for  your  good  opinion  of  us  ! — Mr.  Rivers  !  " 

At  the  last  two  words  she  raises  her  voice  into  a  call ; 
but  it  is  so  unsteady  and  ill-modulated,  and  he  is  so  com- 
paratively distant,  that  one  would  hardly  expect  the 
sound  to  carry  so  far ;  but  apparently  it  does,  for  he 
starts  and  looks  uncertainly  toward  her,  distrusting  his 
own  ears. 

Is  it  likely  that  she  should  have  called  him  ?  she — his 
high  proud  lady — after  such  a  careless  cruelty  of  good-by 
too  ! 

"  Mr.  Rivers  ! "  she  repeats,  in  a  voice  that  is  as  un- 
steady as  before,  but  louder.  There  can  be  no  mistake 
this  time.  He  can  no  longer  distrust  his  good-luck  ;  and 
in  one  second,  as  if  he  could  not  obey  her  quickly  enough, 
he  is  hurrying  back. 

Sarah  lifts  her  arms  deliberately  from  the  gate,  and 
rubs  them  gently  to  remove  the  slight  numbness  pro- 
duced by  contact  with  the  cold  iron. 

"  Blessed  are  they  who  let  well  alone ! "  she  says, 


BELINDA.  299 


gently  raising  her  shoulders,  and  turning  toward  the 
house.  "  I  have  disqualified  myself  for  that  benediction  ; 
have  not  I,  Slutty?" 

So  saying,  she  disappears.  Belinda  would  have  liked 
to  ask  her  to  stay,  but  her  pride  forbids  it.  Long  before 
Rivers  has  reached  her,  she  has  repented  of  her  perverse 
and  devil-born  impulse.  Why  has  she  called  him? 
What  has  she  to  say  to  him  when  he  comes  ?  For  the 
first  moment  she  says  nothing. 

"  You — you  called  me  ?  "  he  asks,  faltering,  surprised 
at  her  silence  and  her  strange  look. 

"  Did  I  ?  "  she  says,  stammering  ;  "  yes — of  course  I 
did  !  I — I — you  leave  Oxbridge  to-morrow  ?  " 

"  Do  I  ?  "  he  answers  blankly. 

Is  this  then  what  she  has  called  him  back  for  ?  To 
tell  him  that  he  must  not  venture  into  her  presence  again  ? 

"  You  must  know  your  own  plans  best,"  she  says,  with 
a  forced  laugh ;  "  do  not  you  leave  Oxbridge  to-mor- 
row?" 

"There  is  no  need  that  I  should,"  he  answers  diffi- 
dently ;  "  I  have  a  week's  holiday  !  " 

Her  rebel  pulses  leap.  A  week  !  A  whole  week ! 
She  lifts  her  face,  on  which  the  sunset  is  mirrored,  and 
looks  toward  the  west.  On  what  a  couch  of  fiery  damask 
roses,  dying  into  daffodil,  the  sun  is  laying  himself  down  ! 
What  a  treble  sweetness  the  throstle  is  putting  into  his 
song  as  he  addresses  himself  to  his  rest ! 

"  A  week  !  "  she  says  aloud. 

"  Does  a  week  in  two  years  seem  to  you  such  a  long 
holiday  ? "  he  asks,  rather  wounded  by  what  sounds  to 
him  the  cold  wonder  of  her  tone  ;  "it  need  not  be  spent 
here,  if—" 

He  stops  abruptly.  " If  you  do  not  wish  it"  would 
be  the  sentence's  natural  ending ;  but  so  to  conclude  it 
would  be  to  suppose  an  interest,  with  which  he  has  no 


300  BELINDA. 


right  nor  any  reason  to  credit  the  wife  of  Professor  Forth 
in  him  and  his  affairs. 

She  does  not  ask  him  how  he  had  meant  to  finish  his 
phrase.  She  does  not  finish  it  for  him.  She  only  stands 
staring,  beneath  the  level  penthouse  of  her  milky  hands, 
at  the  blinding  sunset.  What  a  curve  her  lifted  elbow 
makes  !  From  what  a  marvel  of  wrist  and  forearm  does 
the  lawny  sleeve  fall  back  ! 

"  Is  this  what  you  called  me  for  ?  "  he  asks  abruptly  ; 
"  to  tell  me  that  I  am  to  go  to-morrow  ?  " 

For  a  minute  she  stands  irresolute,  still  looking  sun- 
ward ;  her  outward  woman  a  lovely  pattern  of  harmony, 
grace,  and  quiet ;  her  inward  woman,  ugly  chaos  and  dark 
fight.  Shall  she  say  "  Yes  "  ?  To  say  so  would  be  to  more 
than  retrieve  her  late  error.  Dimly  she  feels  that  if  she 
has  one  ray  of  sober  reason  left  her,  she  will  say  "Yes." 
She  heaves  a  sigh,  and  lets  fall  her  hands.  Her  lips 
have  all  but  framed  the  fateful  word,  when — 

"  Belinda  !  Belinda ! "  comes  an  old  voice,  calling 
imperatively  peevish  from  the  house. 

A  week  !  One  poor  week  !  Only  a  week  !  What 
can  one  week  matter?  Her  manner  has  suddenly 
changed. 

"  It  is  Mr.  Forth  !  "  she  says  hurriedly  ;  "  I  called  you 
back,"  reddening  like  the  western  cloud-fleeces,  and 
throwing  a  guilty  look  over  her  shoulder,  "  to  ask  you 
whether,  if  you  were  not  going  to  leave  Oxbridge  to- 
morrow, you — you  would  join  our  party  on  the  water  ?  " 


BELINDA.  301 


CHAPTER  VI. 

"  Lieb  Liebchen  leg's  Handchen  auf 's  Herze  mein 
Ach  horst  du  wie's  pochet  in's  Kammerlein 
Da  hauset  ein  Zimmermann  schlimm  und  arg 
Der  zimmert  mir  einen  Todten  sarg." 

"  Er  hammert  und  Klopfet  bei  Tag  und  bei  Nacht 
Er  hat  mich  schon  langst  urn  den  Schlaf  gebracht 
Ach  sputet  euch  Meister  Zimmermann 
Damit  Ich  balde  schlafen  kann." 

IN  other  climes,  a  sunset  of  suave  sublimity  usually 
means  that  it  will  be  followed  by  a  sunrise  as  nobly  fair. 
But  in  our  free  isle  this  is  not  the  case.  Even  the  weath- 
er will  submit  to  no  tyranny,  but  follows  its  own  wild 
and  freakish  will.  You  may  close  your  eyes  upon  a  dis- 
tant steady  heaven  of  molten  copper  and  speckless  blue  ; 
and  open  them  upon  a  soaked-blanket  sky,  half  an  inch 
above  your  head. 

During  the  many  wakeful  patches  that  vary  the  same- 
ness of  her  night,  Belinda  has  full  time  to  repent  of  her 
evening's  doings  ;  but  not  once  does  it  occur  to  her  that 
the  weather  may  possibly  intervene  to  prohibit  the  excur- 
sion. Among  all  her  half-sincere  plans  for  evading  the 
expedition,  the  alternative  of  a  wet  day  has  not  once  sug- 
gested itself  ;  and  when  the  morn  comes,  dim  and  sad,  the 
poignancy  of  her  disappointment  at  sight  of  the  dripping 
bushes  and  filled  flower-cups  shows  her  how  much  of  ve- 
racity there  was  in  her  projects  of  abstinence.  Now  she 
will  have  to  endure  the  pang  of  renunciation,  without 
having  enjoyed  the  merit  of  self -con  quest.  And  yet  it  is 
a  lovely  rain,  not  harshly  driving,  nor  rudely  strewing 
the  earth  with  a  ravin  of  torn-off  petals  ;  but  gently  steal- 
ing down  from  the  cloud-roof  overhead,  softly  thrusting 
itself  between  the  blossom-lips,  feeding  the  juicy  leaves, 


302  BELINDA. 


healthful,  wealthful,  beneficent,  yet  execrated  by  two 
young  eyes  that  are  morosely  watching  it.  It  is  exe- 
crated by  two  old  ones  also.  The  Professor  tentatively 
throws  out  an  idea  as  to  the  advisability  of  telegraphing 
to  the  Archaeological  Society  his  inability  to  preside  over 
its  deliberations. 

"  But  you  are  not  sugar  or  salt!"  cries  Belinda  im- 
patiently, as  she  stands,  a  comforter  thrown  over  her  arm 
and  a  mackintosh  extended  to  receive  her  husband's  mea- 
ger person  ;  "  you  will  be  in  cabs  and  trains  all  day." 

"It  is  not  always  easy  to  secure  a  cab  at  a  moment's 
notice  on  a  wet  day  ! "  replies  he,  demurring  ;  "  as  I  have 
often  explained  to  you,  it  is  upon  trifles  that  the  laws  of 
health  depend  ;  there  may  be  delay  enough  to  allow  of 
my  getting  my  feet  thoroughly  wet ;  a  circumstance  am- 
ply sufficient  to  throw  a  chill  upon  a  liver  already  predis- 
posed." 

"  But  will  not  you  be  putting  the  Society  to  great  in- 
convenience ?  will  not  its  members  be  very  much  disap- 
pointed ?  "  asks  she,  reddening  consciously  as  she  speaks. 

What  is  she  saying !  What  does  she  care  whether 
they  are  disappointed  or  not  !  To  what  depths  of  disin- 
genuousness  has  she — truthful  as  she  has  been  hitherto 
counted  her  life  long — already  descended  ?  But  it  may 
clear — it  may  clear  ! 

"  I  might  obviate  the  difficulty  by  taking  an  extra  pair 
of  socks  in  my  pocket  to  change  at  the  Club,"  he  says 
thoughtfully  ;  and  then  her  spirits  rise,  for  he  extends 
his  arms,  not  to  take  a  parting  embrace,  but  to  insert 
them  in  the  waterproof  sleeves  which  she,  with  wifely 
alacrity,  holds  ready  to  receive  them. 

He  is  gone.  That  one  main  obstacle  to  her  pleasure 
is  at  all  events  removed.  If  only  it  would  clear  !  She  is 
no  longer  half -sincere  with  herself.  No  longer  does  she 
feign  a  desire  to  extricate  herself  from  the  entanglement 


BELINDA.  303 


into  which  she  has  plunged,  nor  a  gratitude  to  Mother 
Nature  for  having  come  to  her  aid.  Without  asking  why 
she  wishes  it,  she  has  concentrated  all  her  being  upon  the 
one  mastering  desire  to  see  that  cloud-curtain  raise  its 
trailing  corners,  transpierced  and  put  to  flight  by  such  a 
sun  as  yesterday's. 

."It  does  not  look  in  the  least  like  lifting  !  "  she  says, 
in  a  tone  which  she  in  vain  tries  to  make  sound  careless, 
to  Sarah,  as  they  enter  the  drawing-room  after  breakfast. 
"  Do  you  think  that  there  is  any  chance  of  its  lifting  ?  " 

"  Not  the  slightest !  "  replies  Sarah  placidly. 

With  that  adaptability  to  circumstances  which  makes 
life  to  her  one  long  feast,  Miss  Churchill  has  arranged 
herself  for  a  wet  day.  A  small  fire — not  unwelcome  in  the 
rain-chilled  atmosphere — brightens  the  hearth  ;  and  to  it 
she  has — for  to  her  nothing  is  sacred — pulled  up  the  Pro- 
fessor's chair ;  that  one  of  Mudie's  novels  which,  by  its 
large  type,  wide  margins,  and  plenitude  of  titled  names, 
seems  to  promise  the  least  strain  upon  the  intellect,  in 
her  hand. 

"  Who  would  have  thought  it  yesterday  ?  "  says  Mrs. 
Forth,  in  a  tone  of  mournful  irritation,  totally  unable  to 
follow  her  philosophic  sister's  example,  and  fidgeting 
uneasily  about  the  room. 

"  Who  indeed  ?  "  rejoins  Sarah  equably. 

There  is  something  in  the  indifferent  content  of  her 
voice  that  jars  upon  Belinda's  mood.  The  dogs  have 
taken  their  cue  from  Miss  Churchill — Punch  has  got  in- 
side the  fender,  as  if  it  were  winter  ;  the  cat  lies  lazily 
stretched  just  outside  the  parrot's  cage  ;  and  Polly,  exas- 
perated by  her  air  of  calm  security,  is  walking  stealthily, 
head  downward,  along  the  side  of  his  cage,  and  when  he 
has  got,  as  he  thinks,  within  reach  of  her,  is  stretching 
out  first  a  vicious-hooked  nose,  and  then  a  long  crooked 
gray  hand,  to  make  a  grab  at  her  whiskers. 


304  BELINDA. 


Sarah  laughs. 

"  You  were  so  anxious  for  it  yesterday,"  says  Belinda, 
with  an  irrationally  aggrieved  accent. 

"  Was  I  ?  "  answers  Sarah  yawning.  "  I  am  not  the 
least  anxious  for  it  now  ;  I  am  thoroughly  comfortable, 
thank  God  !  Why  do  not  you  come  near  the  fire  ?  I  have 
a  hundred  questions  to  ask  you  ;  we  have  the  house  all  to 
ourselves — excuse  "  (parenthetically)  "  my  reckoning  that 
among  our  advantages — and  I  have  scores  of  good  things 
to  tell  you  about  Cannes  and  granny  ;  you  used  to"  be 
fond  of  granny  ana  1 " 

"  I  am  not  cold,"  replies  Belinda,  avoiding  compli- 
ance by  seating  herself  where  she  can  at  once  command 
the  window,  and  evade  her  sister's  eyes.  "  Tell  them  me 
here." 

"  Well,  you  must  know,"  begins  Sarah  prudently  ig- 
noring this  ruse,  and  launching  into  her  narrative,  "  that 
some  Poles  had  the  apartment  above  ours  at  the  hotel, 
their  salon  was  over  granny's  bedroom,  and  every  night, 
at  about  ten  o'clock,  they  began  to  dance  sarabands,  and 
cancans,  and  Highland  schottisches,  and  the  Lord  knows 
what  in  it !  You  know  how  fond  granny  is  of  having 
her  old  head  danced  over  when  she  is  courting  her  beauty- 
sleep." 

She  pauses  to  see  whether  her  hearer  is  listening  ;  it 
is  obvious  that  she  is  not,  as  for  a  moment  or  two  she 
makes  no  comment,  and  then,  becoming  aware  of  the 
silence,  breaks  into  a  factitious  laugh. 

"Ha!  ha!" 

"  What  are  you  laughing  at  ? "  asks  Sarah  sharply. 
"  I  had  not  come  to  the  point  yet." 

The  other  stops  embarrassed. 

"  It — it  was  very  good  even  so  far  as  you  had  gone," 
she  answers  in  confusion. 

"The  end  was  better   still,"  replies  Miss   Churchill 


BELINDA.  305 


shortly,  taking  up  her  book  again  ;  "  but  you  shall  never 
hear  it  !  " 

"How  ill-natured  !  "  cries  Mrs.  Forth,  advancing  ea- 
gerly toward  the  hearth,  roused  into  alarm  at  her  own 
self -betrayal ;  "  and  I — I  was  so  much  interested  in  it.  I 
should  like  you  to  begin  it  all  over  again." 

But  Sarah  is  inexorable.  Presently  Belinda  desists 
from  her  importunities,  and  not  daring  to  return  to  the 
window  also  takes  up  a  book,  occasionally  from  behind 
its  shelter  throwing  a  desperate  eye  on  the  weather. 

It  is  a  hopeless  wet  day.  Once  or  twice,  indeed,  there 
has  been  a  tantalizing  thinning  of,  and  movement  among, 
the  vapors  ;  but  it  has  ended  only  in  a  more  resolute,  in- 
flexible fastening  upon  the  earth.  Eleven — that  hour  of 
clearing — has  come  and  gone,  and  brought  no  clearing 
with  it.  After  all,  she  might  as  well  have  done  her 
plain  duty,  and  sent  him  away.  In  that  case  she  would 
at  least  have  had  the  throbs  of  an  approving  conscience 
to  keep  her  up.  And  what,  pray,  has  she  now  ? 

The  forenoon  is  gone  ;  luncheon  is  over  ;  they  are 
again  in  the  drawing-room.  The  novel  has  long  ago 
dropped  from  Sarah's  fingers,  and  she  has  slidden  into  a 
warm,  infantile  slumber.  The  door-bell,  loudly  jangling, 
wakes  her  with  a  jump. 

"  It  is  those  hateful  boys  !  "  she  cries  petulantly,  start- 
ing up.  "  Am  I  never  to  have  any  peace  from  them  ? 
and  I  was  in  such  a  beautiful  sleep  !  " 

One  glance  at  her  sister's  face — that  sister  who  has 
obviously  not  shared  her  slumbers  ;  whose  watch  has 
been  at  length  rewarded,  though  by  no  brightening  of 
the  material  sky — tells  her  who  is  among  "those  hate- 
ful boys."  Perhaps  this  fact  adds  a  new  tinge  of  ill- 
humor  to  her  tone,  as  she  advances,  childishly  rubbing 
her  drowsy  eyes  with  her  knuckles,  to  meet  her  ad- 
mirers. 


306  BELINDA. 


"  You  woke  me  !  "  she  says,  pouting.  "  I  was  in  such 
a  beautiful  sleep  !  " 

This  speech  is  not  calculated  to  reassure  three  timid 
young  gentlemen,  who  have  already  been  questioning  the 
wisdom  of  their  own  procedure,  and  doubtfully  discussing 
among  themselves  the  probabilities  as  to  the  mood, 
whether  of  summer  warmth  or  December  ice,  that  they 
will  find  their  hostess  in.  Upon  Sarah,  at  least,  they  had 
counted  to  stand  by  them.  But  aid  from  an  unexpected 
quarter  comes  to  them. 

"  Never  mind  her  !  "  says  Belinda,  with  a  young  and 
radiant  smile  of  welcome  and  reassurance.  "  What  busi- 
ness has  she  to  be  asleep  ?  A  wet  day  ?  Yes,  it  is  a  wet 
day  :  but  what  delicious  warm  rain  !  how  much  good  it 
will  do  to  the  country  !  the  farmers  are  crying  out  for 
rain  ! " 

This  is  the  way  in  which  she  now  regards  the  lately- 
execrated  downpour.  Is  he  not  here?  and  whether  in 
sunny  boat  on  flashing  river,  gathering  fritillaries  in  the 
water-meadows,  or  in  little  rain-darkened  Early-English 
drawing-room,  is  not  it  now  all  one  to  her  ? 

"  Vivre  ensemble  d'abord, 

CTcst  le  bien  necessaire  et  reel, 
Apres  on  peut  choisir  au  hasard 
Ou  la  terre  ou  le  ciel  ! " 

"I  hope  you  will  forgive  our  calling  so  early,"  says 
Bellairs,  a  little  relieved,  but  still  not  very  comfortable 
in  his  spirits  ;  "  we — we  wanted  to  know  what  you 
thought  about  the  river." 

"  About  the  river  !  "  cries  Sarah,  still  cross  and  sleepy, 
casting  a  sarcastic  glance,  first  at  the  weather,  and  then 
at  the  young  man  ;  "  are  we  frogs  or  young  ducks  ?  " 

He  looks  so  silly,  that  Miss  Churchill  laughs,  her 
good-humor  at  once  restored. 


BELINDA.  307 


"  Now  that  you  are  here,  you  may  as  well  stay,"  she 
says,  in  a  thoroughly  wide-awake  voice  ;  "  may  not  they, 
Belinda  ?  If  we  depend  upon  the  charms  of  conversation, 
I  shall  be  asleep  again  in  ten  minutes  ;  why  should  not 
we  play  games  ?  " 

"  Why  not  ?  "  responds  Belinda  readily. 

Her  cheeks  are  pink,  and  her  eyes  dancing.  There  is 
no  pastime,  however  wildly,  childishly  hilarious,  for  which 
she  is  not  in  tune. 

"  Shouting  Proverbs ! "  suggests  Sarah  joyously. 
"  Not  know  Shouting  Proverbs  ?  "  (with  a  reproving  look 
at  Stanley,  who  has  murmured  this  objection).  "  Why, 
everybody  shouts,  and  one  guesses  !  "  (in  lucid  explana- 
tion). "  It  makes  a  tremendous  noise  ;  I  do  not  know 
that  it  has  any  other  merit." 

"  The  neighbors  would  indict  us  for  a  nuisance,"  says 
Belinda  gayly,  shaking  her  head.  "  Russian  Scandal  ?  " 

"  It  does  not  make  noise  enough,"  says  Sarah  ;  "  it  is 
nothing  but  whispering  ;  we  will  have  no  whispering " 
(rather  curtly,  and  with  an  almost  imperceptible  glance 
toward  Rivers,  in  application  of  the  warning). 

"  Hare  and  Hounds  is  not  a  bad  game  in  a  house," 
says  Mr.  De  Lisle,  in  a  small  shy  voice.  "We  played 
Hare  and  Hounds  at  a  house  I  was  staying  at  the  other 
day  ;  we  ran  all  through  every  room,  from  attic  to  cellar ; 
it  was  great  fun  !  " 

"  Your  friend  evidently  did  not  keep  a  mother-in-law 
out  of  repair  up-stairs,"  replies  Sarah,  dismissing  at  once, 
though  with  leniency,  this  not  very  bright  suggestion  ; 
"  we  do.  What  does  the  company  say  to  Post,  eh  ?  " 

The  company,  who  are  one  and  all  in  the  mood  for 
riotous  jollity  in  any  form,  hail  the  proposal  with  one- 
voiced  effusion ;  and  it  is  on  the  point  of  being  carried 
into  execution,  when  Miss  Churchill  suggests  an  improve- 
ment upon  it. 


308  BELINDA. 


"  Why  not  dance  ?  dancing  is  better  than  any  games  ! 
Surely  some  one  can  play,  or  even  whistle  a  tune,  or  set 
the  musical-box  tinkling  out  its  one  waltz.  Room  ?  plenty 
of  room  !  too  much  room  !  Wheel  all  the  furniture  out 
into  the  passage  !  " 

No  sooner  said  than  done.  Away  trundles  the  early 
English  suite  of  rush-bottomed  chairs  ;  away  the  Pro- 
fessor's sacred  fauteuil !  away  Belinda's  work-table ! 
everything  but  the  piano  and  the  music-stool,  to  which 
little  De  Lisle,  having  weakly  admitted  that  he  can" play 
a  little  dance-music,  is  at  once  ruthlessly  nailed. 

The  rain  patters,  snow-soft  outside.  The  valse  strikes 
up.  There  is  a  moment's  hesitation.  Bellairs  and  Stave- 
ley,  generously  unwilling  to  steal  a  march  upon  each 
other,  hang  back ;  but  Sarah  settles  the  point  by  frisk- 
ing up  to  the  one  nearest  to  her — it  is  all  one  to  her 
with  which  she  dances  ;  it  happens  to  be  Bellairs,  and 
swoops  away  with  him  smooth  and  sure  as  a  swallow  dart- 
ing down  upon  a  moth.  Without  a  word  exchanged  be- 
tween them,  Belinda  finds  herself  in  Rlvers's  arms.  The 
rain  plash-plashes  upon  the  open  window's  sill.  How 
long  it  is  since  she  has  danced  !  How  madly  exhilarating 
are  motion  and  measure  !  Is  it  in  heaven  or  upon  earth 
that  that  lame  waltz  is  being  strummed  ?  After  a  turn 
or  two  he  feels  her  light  and  buoyant  body  grow  heavy 
in  his  embrace. 

"  Stop  !  "  she  says  dizzily  ;  "  the  room  goes  round." 

He  obeys  at  once  ;  and  fearing  lest  she  may  fall,  keeps 
for  one  moment  his  arm  around  her. 

"  It  is  so  long  since  I  danced,"  she  says,  lifting  one 
white  hand  to  her  giddy  eyes  ;  "  so  long — so  long  !  not 
since — " 

She  breaks  off. 

"  Not  since  your — " 

He  also  breaks  off.     But  she  is  none  the  less  firmly 


BELINDA.  309 


and  irrevocably  wed,  because  of  his  inability  to  say 
"  your  marriage." 

"  Not  since  long  before  then,"  rejoins  she,  hurriedly 
interrupting,  with  a  nervous  dread  lest  he  may  complete 
the  phrase  ;  "not  since — Dresden." 

"  But  we  never  danced  in — Dresden,"  he  says,  mak- 
ing the  same  slight  pause  as  she  had  done  before  the 
name  of  the,  to  them,  sacred  city. 

"  You  did  not,  perhaps,"  she  answers  with  a  charm- 
ing saucy  smile — for  under  the  unwonted  joyous  excite- 
ment, her  spirits  are  towering  perilously  high — "but  I 
did.  Some  Gardereiters  came  in  one  evening,  and  I  took 
a  turn  with  two  of  them  ;  it  was  before  your  day." 

Distant  as  is  the  epoch  alluded  to,  and  satisfactorily 
as  he  had  been  persuaded  at  the  time  by  ocular  evidence 
of  the  reciprocal  indifference  of  Belinda  and  the  Saxon 
officers,  he  can  not  avoid  a  feeling  of  biting  jealousy  and 
offense  against  those  innocent  and  both  in  time  and  space 
far-off  German  valseurs. 

"  At  least  it  is  my  day  now,"  he  says  with  emphasis  ; 
and  she  offering  no  contradiction,  away  they  float  into 
their  trance  again. 

The  valse  ends  ;  the  patient  De  Lisle  begins  to  ham- 
mer out  a  galop.  They  must  part ;  for  Bellairs,  em- 
boldened thereto  by  Sarah's  warm  approbation,  is  invit- 
ing Belinda,  and  she  dare  not  refuse.  Rivers  dances 
with  Miss  Churchill.  Why  need  he  ?  Why  need  he 
dance  at  all  ?  Why,  above  all,  need  he  throw  such  spirit 
and  animation  into  his  dancing  ?  He  looks  as  if  he  were 
enjoying  himself  as  much  as  Sarah.  Staveley,  after  hav- 
ing vainly  endeavored  to  educate  Slutty  into  a  partner 
(Slutty,  on  unwilling  hind-legs,  and  with  tail  abjectly 
tucked  in,  perhaps  in  the  laudable  intention  of  giving 
herself  a  more  human  air),  gallops  bravely  by  himself. 
The  galop  ends.  The  musician,  bringing  out  of  his 


310  BELINDA. 


treasures  things  new  and  old,  treats  them  to  a  venerable 
polka. 

Once  more  he  and  she  are  together ;  and  in  what  a 
different  spirit  her  light  feet  now  move  !  Bellairs  had 
found  her  but  a  disappointing  partner ;  inert,  and  often 
begging  to  be  allowed  to  stop  and  take  breath.  In  Rivers's 
arms  her  life's  tides  are  running  at  their  highest.  It  is 
Staveley's  turn  to  be  Sarah's  danseur,  and  Bellairs,  emu- 
lating his  friend's  former  example,  polks  alone.  But  not 
altogether  with  his  friend's  success.  For  Punch,  inspired 
by  a  scientific  curiosity  to  investigate  the  strange  phe- 
nomena that  have  appeared  on  his  horizon,  unhappily 
runs  between  his  legs,  and  brings  him  to  the  earth  with 
some  clamor.  The  player  stops  ;  the  dancers  pause. 

"  We  have  had  enough  of  this,"  says  Sarah,  drawing 
her  sister  into  the  window  for  an  aside,  and  speaking  with 
some  brusqueness ;  "  it  is  not  fair  upon  that  poor  boy " 
(indicating  De  Lisle)  ;  "  he  is  getting  cross,  though  he 
tries  not  to  show  it.  As  I  have  not  three  legs  and  arms 
like  the  Isle  of  Man,  I  can  not  dance  with  them  all  at  once, 
and  you  are  not  much  help  !  Let  us  try  something  else." 

"  By  all  means,"  answers  Belinda  hurriedly,  shrinking 
away  from  the  reproach  that  her  conscience  tells  her  she 
so  richly  deserves  ;  "  anything  !  whatever  you  please  !  " 

"The  ball  is  ended,"  says  Sarah  authoritatively,  re- 
turning to  the  young  men,  and  clapping  her  hands  to  en- 
force silence  ;  "  but  if  the  company  pleases  it  will  be  im- 
mediately followed  by  some  athletic  sports.  "What  does 
every  one  say  to  a  game  of  blind-man's-buff  ?  " 

This  second  proposal  is  received  with  an  enthusiasm 
as  much  hotter  than  the  former  as  may  be  expected  from 
the  universal  loosening  of  the  bonds  of  shyness  and  con- 
ventionality which  has  taken  place  since  that  former  one 
was  first  made. 

Sarah  at  once  volunteers  to  be  blindfolded  ;  and  in 


BELINDA.  311 


two  minutes  she  is  established  in  the  middle  of  the  little 
room,  a  Liberty  silk  handkerchief  tied  over  her  jovial 
eyes,  and  her  hands  outstretched  in  futile  blind  groping 
and  grabbing. 

The  rest  of  the  party,  in  the  most  approved  fashion, 
pull  her  gown,  tweak  her  hair,  nip  her  sleeve  ;  but  not 
for  long.  With  one  well-directed  lunge — so  well  directed 
as  to  rouse  an  instant  loud  cry  of  dishonesty — she  has 
pounced  upon  Bellairs,  who  in  his  turn  is  blindfolded — 
is  in  his  turn  tweaked  and  nipped — and  in  his  turn  catches 
Rivers  ;  Rivers  catches  Belinda. 

The  fun  waxes  fast  and  furious.  They  have  raised 
every  grain  of  dust  latent  in  the  carpet ;  Punch  is  cheer- 
ing them  on  by  volleys  of  delighted  short  barks,  while 
Slutty  sits  wretchedly  in  a  corner  with  her  face  to  the 
wall. 

Most  madly  mirthful  of  all — most  intemperately  gay, 
out-Heroding  Herod,  out-doing  Sarah  in  her  wildest  mood, 
with  splendid  poppy-cheeks  and  lightening  eyes,  is  Mrs. 
Forth.  She  has  been  old  so  long — so  long  !  She  is  mak- 
ing up  the  arrears  of  her  lost  youth. 

The  clamor  is  at  its  loudest.  Scarcely  less  blowzed — 
bawling  scarcely  less  noisily  than  were  the  Primrose  fam- 
ily in  neighbor  Flamborough's  kitchen,  when  annihilated 
by  the  entrance  of  Lady  Blarney  and  Miss  Caroline  Wil- 
helmina  Amelia  Skeggs,  is  the  society  gathered  on  that 
wet  May  afternoon  in  Professor  Forth's  decent  drawing- 
room. 

Belinda,  caught  for  the  second  time,  stands  blind- 
folded in  the  middle  of  the  room,  while  shouts  of  up- 
roarious laughter  greet  her  vain  efforts  to  gain  hold  of 
any  of  the  assailants  who  lustily  beset  her.  All  of  a  sud- 
den, in  one  instant,  there  is  silence.  The  pushing,  and 
jostling,  and  nipping  have  altogether  ceased.  Without 
any  attempt  at  resistance  some  one  is  in  her  clasp. 


312  BELINDA. 


"  I  have  got  you ! "  cries  she,  in  a  voice  of  jubilant 
triumph  ;  "  who  are  you  ?  "  and  so  tears  the  bandage  from 
her  eyes. 

It  is  indeed  true  that  she  is  grasping  Rivers's  coat- 
sleeve  in  indisputable  conquest ;  but,  at  the  moment  that 
she  verifies  this  fact,  the  cause  of  his  having  fallen  so 
easy  a  prey — the  cause  of  the  instantaneous  and  entire 
muteness  that  has  fallen  upon  the  so  boisterous  little  as- 
semblage, breaks  in  horror  upon  her  stunned  eyes. 

The  door  is  half  open,  and  through  it  Professor  Forth 
is  looking,  with  an  expression  hard  to  qualify  upon  his 
face,  at  the  entertainment  got  up  with  such  spirit  and 
success  in  his  absence.  Not  for  long,  however.  In  a 
moment  he  has  softly  closed  the  door  again  and  with- 
drawn. For  several  moments  they  stand  staring  at  each 
other  speechless  and  aghast. 

Belinda's  look  wanders  in  consternation  from  one  to 
another  of  the  faces  round  her.  Disordered  hair,  red-hot 
cheeks,  panting  breath,  rampagious  eyes  !  Bedlam  might 
easily  turn  out  a  saner-looking  party.  In  comparison  of 
them  Comus's  crew  were  an  orderly  Philistine  band. 

The  men  are  bad  enough,  but  Sarah — but  herself  ! 
Bacchante  and  romp  mixed  in  just  and  fine  proportions 
as  her  sister  looks,  her  stricken  conscience  tells  her  that 
she  herself  far  outdoes  her,  though  she  dares  not  ask  the 
looking  -  glass  for  confirmation  of  this  conviction ;  but 
during  the  past  mad  hour,  has  not  Sarah  been  tame  and 
mild  when  compared  with  her  ? 

"  Had  not  we  better  be  going  ?  "  says  Bellairs  at  last, 
in  a  lamb's  voice,  in  which  no  one  would  recognize  the 
hilarious  bellow  of  five  minutes  ago. 

"  I  think  that  there  can  be  no  two  opinions  on  that 
head,"  replies  Sarah  dryly.  As  she  speaks  she  turns  to 
her  dazed  elder,  and  lowers  her  voice  :  "  Had  not  you  bet- 
ter go  and  ask  him  whether  he  feels  inclined  to  join  us  ?  " 


BELINDA.  313 


Belinda  turns  in  stupid  compliance  toward  the  door. 
As  she  makes  her  difficult  way  through  the  little  passage, 
blocked  with  articles  of  furniture  piled  one  atop  of  an- 
other, her  consternation  deepens.  He  must  have  had  to 
climb  like  a  cat  over  his  own  arm-chair  in  order  to  gain 
ingress  into  his  own  drawing-room  !  It  is  impossible  ! 
It  would  be  adding  insult  to  injury  to  present  herself  be- 
fore him  in  her  present  dishevelment.  She  must  needs 
repair  to  her  own  room  ;  must  needs,  with  intense  repug- 
nance, snatch  a  glance  at  her  own  disordered  image  in 
the  toilet-glass.  The  case  is  even  worse  than  she  had 
feared.  There  is  even  more  of  the  Moenad  than  she  had 
apprehended  in  her  reflection.  But  there  is  no  time  to  be 
lost.  Each  moment  that  passes,  leaving  her  offense  un- 
acknowledged, lends  it  a  deeper  dye.  A  brush  snatched  up 
and  hastily  applied  to  her  revolted  hair  ;  two  hand-palms, 
but  they  are  hot  too,  held  for  a  moment  to  her  blazing 
cheeks  in  the  vain  effort  to  cool  them,  and  she  is  off  again. 

Outside  his  door  she  hesitates  an  instant,  listening  in 
scared  heart-sinking  ;  but  there  is  no  sound  audible  with- 
in, so,  plucking  up  what  courage  she  may,  she  enters. 
He  is  seated  at  his  writing-table,  in  the  leathern  chair  in 
which  she  has  passed  such  countless  hours  of  ennui  and 
fatigue,  slaving  in  his  service.  The  thought  emboldens 
her  a  little,  and  she  advances  up  the  room  and  stands  be- 
side him. 

"  May  I  take  your  place  ?  "  she  asks  in  a  rather  falter- 
ing voice.  "  I  am  quite  ready." 

It  is  a  whole  minute  before  he  answers.  There  is  no 
plainer  mode  of  showing  resentment  than  by  letting  sixty 
seconds  elapse  between  a  question  addressed  to  you  and 
your  answer.  Then  : 

"I  am  obliged  to  you,"  he  answers  woodenly,  still 
writing  ;  "  but  I  think  that,  in  its  present  condition,  your 
mind  is  scarcely  capable  of  serious  employment !  " 
14 


314  BELINDA. 


There  is  something  so  galling  in  the  implication  that 
her  spirit  rises. 

"  Do  you  think  that  I  am  drunk  f  "  she  asks  violently  ; 
then,  recollecting  how  gravely  in  the  wrong  she  has  been, 
she  masters  herself,  and  says  apologetically  :  "  I  am  very 
sorry  ;  it  was  very  foolish  ;  but — but — I  did  not  expect 
you  home  by  so  early  a  train." 

He  gives  a  little  odious,  though  perhaps  pardonable, 
laugh. 

"  That  fact  was  sufficiently  obvious." 

"  I  am  very  sorry,"  she  repeats  again,  with  uneasy  iter- 
ation, shifting  wretchedly  from  one  foot  to  the  other,  as 
she  stands  in  her  culpritship  before  him  ;  "but — but  it 
was  so  wet,  and  we  could  not  get  out,  and — and  it  was  so 
long  since  I  had  danced  or  played  at  any  games  !  " 

There  is  a  wistful  accent  audible  even  to  herself  in 
her  voice,  and  she  looks  at  him  with  a  sort  of  forlorn 
hope  that  he  may  be  touched  by  it.  If  he  is,  he  masters 
it  admirably. 

"  Indeed  !  "  he  answers  cuttingly.  "  Well,  next  time 
that  such  an  impulse  seizes  you,  I  should  be  obliged  by 
your  choosing  some  other  spot  than  my  house  to  turn 
into  a  bear-garden  !  " 

She  had  thought  that  her  cheeks  were  already  as  hot 
as  cheeks  could  be,  but  the  sudden  influx  of  blood  that 
his  words  send  pulsing  into  them  shows  her  her  mistake. 
Hitherto,  shame  at  and  repentance  of  her  frolic,  joined 
with  a  sincere  desire  to  make  amends  for  it,  have  been 
her  predominant  emotions  ;  now  at  once  they  vanish,  and 
give  place  to  a  biting  sense  of  injustice  and  aversion. 

"  After  all,  it  was  no  such  great  crime,"  she  says  in  a 
hard  voice,  in  which  is  no  trace  of  the  gentle,  humble  key 
of  her  earlier  utterance  ;  "  it  was  silly,  perhaps,"  with  a 
burning  blush,  "  but  it  was  an  innocent  enough  wet-day 
amusement ! " 


BELINDA.  315 


"  It  is  an  innocent  wet-day  amusement  against  the  re- 
currence of  which  I  shall  take  measures  to  secure  myself," 
he  replies  resentfully. 

There  is  something,  or  she  fancies  so,  of  menacing  in 
his  tone,  at  which  her  gorge  rises. 

"  You  forget,"  she  says,  in  a  low  but  extremely  dis- 
tinct voice,  "that  I  am  young.  If  you  had  married  a 
wife  of  your  own  age,  it  would  have  been  different ;  but 
you  must  remember  that  I  am  at  the  beginning  of  life, 
and  you  at  the  end  !  "  Having  delivered  herself  of  this 
amiable  reminder,  she  walks  toward  the  door,  not  giving 
one  glance  to  see  how  far  her  shaft  has  gone  home.  On 
reaching  her  own  room  she  breaks  into  hysterical  sob- 
bing. "If  he  had  taken  it  differently,  he  might  have 
made  a  friend  for  life  of  me  ! "  she  cries. 

This  is,  perhaps,  putting  it  a  little  strongly. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

ONE  would  have  thought  that  upon  the  most  inveter- 
ate pleasure-seekers,  such  a  cold-water  douche  could  not 
have  been  poured  without  producing  a  permanently  heal- 
ing effect ;  that  never  again  would  the  members  of  the 
little  band,  so  disastrously  surprised  in  mid-romp  by  the 
Professor  of  Etruscan,  lift  up  their  humbled  heads  from 
the  dust,  into  which  that  one  glance  of  his  narrow  eye 
had  abased  them.  And  yet  it  is  but  too  true — such  is  the 
potency  of  the  spring  and  youth  spirits,  when  they  meet 
in  lusty  embrace — that  before  forty-eight  hours  are  over, 
they  are  planning  another  excursion. 

A  whole  long  day  spent  chiefly  in  her  own  society,  for 
Belinda  has  had  to  expiate  by  working  double  tides  her 
short  idleness,  has  convinced  Sarah  of  the  wisdom  and  ner 


316  BELINDA. 


cessity  of  catering  for  her  own  amusement.  By  some 
means,  whether  of  writing,  or  meeting  on  neutral  ground, 
she  has  established  a  communication  with  Bellairs  and  his 
friends  ;  and  in  their  eager  hands,  guided  by  her  com- 
manding spirit,  the  project  of  a  new  expedition  for  the 
following  day — i.  e.,  the  day  but  one  after  their  being  put 
to  the  rout — speedily  takes  shape.  It  is  indeed  shorn  of 
its  former  noble  proportions,  for  it  is  not  likely  that  Mrs. 
Forth  will  soon  be  indulged  with  another  whole  holiday  ; 
but  upon  a  part — the  latter  part — of  the  afternoon  she 
may,  without  undue  sanguineness,  reckon  as  lawfully  her 
own  ;  and  now  that  the  evenings  are  so  long,  it  is  of  lit- 
tle consequence  how  late,  whether  lit  by  red  sun  or  white 
moon,  they  return. 

Belinda  has  no  share  in  the  formation  of  the  plan. 
She  knows  of  it,  indeed.  Did  she  not  know  of  it,  would 
she  not  have  broken  down  under  the  pitiless  labors  of  the 
interminable  day  that  intervenes  between  it  and  its  abor- 
tive predecessor  ?  A  sort  of  superstition  keeps  her  from 
inquiring  as  to  any  of  its  details.  To  take  for  granted 
that  it  will  happen  will,  judging  by  all  precedent  and 
analogy,  probably  prevent  it.  Much  less  dares  she  ask 
whether  Rivers  is  to  be  included  in  it. 

"  I  do  not  even  know  of  whom  your  party  consists," 
she  says  at  last,  overnight,  to  her  sister,  emboldened  by 
the  after-dinner  twilight,  in  which  they  are  strolling 
round  and  round  the  odorous  garden  plat,  and  fondly 
trusting  that  for  once  that  sister's  acuteness  may  be  at v 
fault,  and  not  detect  the  ill-hidden  motive  of  her  words. 

"  Of  whom  it  consists  ?  "  repeats  Sarah  carelessly,  lift- 
ing and  spreading  out  one  hand,  and  striking  the  fingers, 
one  after  one,  with  the  index  of  the  other.  "You," 
touching  the  thumb,  "  I,  Mr.  Bellairs,  Mr.  Staveley,  Mr. 
De  Lisle." 


BELINDA.  317 


She  has  reached  the  little  finger,  and  there  pauses. 

"  Two  ladies  and  three  men  ?  "  comments  Belinda,  in 
tremulous  interrogation. 

Sarah  does  not  contradict  her. 

"  We  should  have  been  six  last  time,"  says  Mrs.  Forth, 
after  a  short  silence. 

"  Yes,  six,"  assents  Sarah. 

Belinda's  heart  beats  low.  She  withdraws  her  hand 
from  her  sister's  arm,  upon  which  it  has  been  resting, 
ostensibly  to  hold  up  her  gown  ;  but  in  a  moment  that 
gown  is  again  trailing  unregarded  behind  her.  Why  has 
she  been  gazing  with  such  elation  at  the  steady  roses  and 
ambers  of  the  west  ?  Promise-breaking  as  evening  skies 
are,  surely  no  sky  could  break  such  a  promise  as  this  !  If 
what  Sarah  implies  be  true,  what  does  it  matter  whether 
that  promise  be  kept  or  broken  ? 

"  You  have  not  asked  Mr.  Rivers  ?  "  she  says  at  last, 
with  abrupt  desperation,  seeing  that  her  sister  volunteers 
no  further  information. 

"  I  have  certainly  not  asked  him,"  replies  Sarah  grave- 
ly, with  a  slight  stress  upon  the  pronoun. 

Mrs.  Forth  does  not  perceive  the  significant  accentua- 
tion ;  and  only  gathers  that  her  fears  are  realized.  It  is 
a  moment  or  two  before  she  can  speak.  Then — 

"  That  was  civil !  "  she  says,  in  a  resentful  low  key  ; 
"  but  I  suppose  that  in  the  case  of  a  common  workman  in 
an  iron-foundry — " 

"  Stay ! "  interrupts  Sarah  calmly,  "  before  you  say 
anything  more,  for  which  you  might  afterward  be  sorry. 
I  may  as  well  tell  you  that  he  is  invited.  I  had,  God 
knows,  no  hand  in  it ;  but  Mr.  Bellairs  invited  him,  and 
very  officious  I  think  it  was  of  him  !  " 

The  morning  has  come.  The  sunset  has  been  better 
than  its  word.  No  average  fair  day  is  this,  upon  which  it 
simply  does  not  rain,  but  one  that  earth,  air,  and  sky  from 


318  BELINDA. 


morn  to  eve  vie  in  nobly  decking  ;  such  a  day  as  that  one 
before  which  old  George  Herbert  poured  the  nard  and 
spices  of  his  curious  sweet  verse,  which  for  two  hundred 
years  has  risen  to  most  hearts  and  lips  on  any  day  of  un- 
usual summer  splendor.  It  is  certain  that  this  time  the 
weather  at  least  will  throw  no  obstacle  in  her  way.  The 
forenoon,  of  hot  labor  to  the  one  sister,  of  luxurious  cool 
idling  to  the  other,  is  past  and  gone.  So  is  luncheon. 

The  hour  for  departure  draws  near.  Sarah  is  already 
dressed — dressed  to  the  last  button  of  her  Paris  gloves  ; 
to  the  last  bewitching  pinch  given  to  the  fantastic  rural 
hat,  whose  pulling  to  pieces  and  rebuilding  have  largely 
helped  in  the  beguiling  of  her  lonely  morning. 

Belinda,  usually  punctual,  and  to-day,  as  one  would 
think,  with  treble  motives  for  punctuality,  has  not  yet 
appeared.  But  just  as  the  impatient  Sarah  is  turning  over 
in  her  mind  the  advisability  of  hurrying  her  by  a  call,  she 
enters.  At  sight  of  her,  an  exclamation  of  surprise  and 
remonstrance  rises  to  her  sister's  lips. 
"Not  dressed  yet?" 

For,  indeed,  about  Mrs.  Forth  there  is  no  appearance 
of  festal  preparation  ;  her  head  is  uncovered  ;  she  is  in 
her  usual  working  morning  gown — a  gown  to  which  tra- 
ditions of  ink  and  folios  seem  continually  to  adhere  ;  her 
steps  are  languid,  and  her  eyes  dead. 

"I  am  not  going,"  she  answers  doggedly,  throwing  her- 
self into  a  chair.  "  I  must  give  it  up  ! " 

"  Give  it  up  ?  "  repeats  the  other,  with  an  incredulity 
born  of  the  recollection  of  Belinda's  passionately  eager 
watching  of  the  sunset  overnight ;  "  why  ?  " 

"He  can  not  spare  me," replies  Belinda  in  a  dull, level 
tone  ;  "he  says  that  he  is  ill." 

" III?  what  is  the  matter  with  him  ?  " 

"  I  really  forgot  to  inquire  whether  it  was  his  heart  or 
his  liver  to-day,"  rejoins  the  other,  with  a  sort  of  apathetic 


BELINDA.  319 


satire  ;  "  it  is  always  either  his  heart  or  his  liver  ;  except 
now  and  then  when  it  is  his  spleen  ! " 

"  Whichever  it  is,"  says  Sarah  bluntly — "  and  I  sup- 
pose you  mean  to  imply  that  it  is  not  any  of  them,  really 
— I  do  not  see  what  good  you  can  do  !  " 

"  I  can  give  him  his  drops,"  replies  Belinda,  with  the 
same  artificial  tameness  ;  then,  life  coming  back  in  poign- 
ant pain  into  her  tone — "while  you  are  on  the  river, 
I  shall  be  giving  him  his  drops  !  Oh  !  "  turning  over 
writhingly  in  her  chair,  and  half  burying  her  face  in  the 
cushion,  "  what  will  not  the  river  be  to-day  !  You  will 
be  under  the  willows  ;  they  will  push  your  boat  right 
under  the  branches  !  You  have  never  done  it ;  you  do 
not  know  what  it  is  to  lie  under  the  willows  on  a  day  like 
this ! " 

She  ends  with  something  not  far  removed  from  a  sob  ; 
then,  sitting  upright  again,  and  resentfully  regarding  her 
sister  : 

"  You  do  not  seem  very  sorry  ;  if  one  were  of  a  sus- 
picious disposition  one  might  almost  say  you  looked  glad." 

"  As  usual  you  are  beside  the  mark,"  replies  Sarah 
calmly.  "  I  was  reflecting  that  in  all  probability  the 
whole  expedition  must  now  fall  through,  as  not  even  I 
dare  brave  Oxbridge  public  opinion  by  taking  to  the 
water  with  four  young  men  and  without  a  chaperone." 

"  Of  course  not !  "  cries  Belinda,  catching  eagerly  at 
this  suggestion,  and  with  a  feeling  as  of  a  burden  most 
unaccountably  lightened  ;  "  it  would  be  quite  out  of  the 
question  !  " 

How  comparatively  easy  it  will  be  to  administer  Pro- 
fessor Forth's  drops,  with  no  simultaneous  mental  con- 
sciousness maddening  her  of  the  dazzling  water,  the  shel- 
tering gray-green  willow  arch,  and  of  Rivers  lying  beneath 
it,  laughing  as  Sarah,  alas  !  knows  how  to  make  him  laugh, 
stretched  in  lazy  forgetful  enjoyment  at  her  feet.  The  dis- 


320  BELINDA. 


tinctly  disappointed  expression  painted  on  Miss  Churchill's 
pink  and  white  lineaments  brings  her  back  to  a  conscious- 
ness of  her  selfishness. 

"  I  could  ask  Mrs.  Baker  whether  she  would  take  you," 
she  says  slowly,  in  reluctant  suggestion  ;  "  she  is  fond 
of  the  river,  and  she  lives  only  two  houses  off.  Do  you 
think  " — dragging  her  words  somewhat,  and  hoping,  oh, 
how  ardently  !  for  an  answer  in  the  negative — "  that  it 
would  be  worth  while  asking  Mrs.  Baker  to  take 
you?" 

"  Eminently  worth  while  !  "  replies  Sarah  joyfully,  the 
sparkle  returning  at  a  hand-gallop  to  her  eyes. 

Belinda  has  already  repented  of  her  offer,  but  shame 
prevents  her  now  going  back  from  it.  She  seats  herself 
at  the  writing-table,  and  Sarah  walks  to  the  window. 

"  I  can  see  them  all  at  the  corner  of  the  road,"  she 
says,  chuckling  ;  "  they  dare  not  come  any  farther  than 
the  corner,  and  even  there  I  can  see  that  they  are  in  a 
cold  sweat  of  apprehension." 

Belinda  writes  on  :  that  most  urikillable  of  plants — 
hope — sending  up  a  little  fresh  shoot  in  her  heart ;  after 
all,  fate  may  be  kind.  It  may  have  sent  Mrs.  Baker  a 
previous  engagement,  a  headache — what  not  ?  But  fate 
disdains  to  be  dictated  to.  If  it  is  kind  to  us,  it  is  out 
of  its  own  free-will,  and  not  at  our  bidding. 

"  She  will  be  delighted,"  says  Sarah,  returning  in  an 
impossibly  short  space  of  time  ;  Sarah  who,  to  insure  the 
greater  security  and  speed,  has  insisted  upon  being  her- 
self the  bearer  of  the  note.  "  She  is  very  much  obliged 
to  you  for  thinking  of  her  ;  she  is  putting  on  her  things 
now,  and  will  be  at  the  corner  as  soon  as  I." 

Miss  Churchill  is  bustling  away,  perhaps  not  very 
anxious  to  take  a  prolonged  farewell  look  at  her  sister's 
face  ;  but  that  sister  detains  her. 

"  I  will  go  with  you  as  far  as  the  corner,"  she  says 


BELINDA.  321 


feverishly,  catching  up  a  shabby  garden-hat,  and  throwing 
it  on  her  hot  head  as  she  speaks. 

Before  she  has  gone  six  yards  she  has  repented  of  her 
impulse.  There  seems  to  be  in  these  days  not  one  of  her 
actions  of  which  she  does  not  repent  before  it  is  half-way 
to  execution.  Why  should  she,  of  her  own  free-will,  forc- 
ing him  to  a  comparison  between  them,  set  herself,  poor 
workaday  drudge  as  she  is,  beside  this  charming  holiday 
creature — so  delicately  fine,  so  infectiously  gay?  Even 
now  she  would  go  back,  but  it  is  too  late.  The  young 
men  have  caught  sight  of  her  :  in  a  moment  they  have 
all  met. 

Rivers  exhales  a  heavy  sigh  of  relief.  He  has  had 
bad  dreams,  and  a  dragging  presage  of  ill-luck  hanging 
about  him ;  but  both  dreams  and  presage  are  as  false  as 
dreams  and  presages  mostly  are.  Had  not  they  told  him 
that  she  would  be  prevented  coming?  and  is  not  she 
here  standing  in  beautiful  bodily  presence  before  him? 
Is  he  likely  to  observe  the  age  of  her  hat,  or  the  humility 
of  her  gown  ?  He,  never  one  of  those  man-milliners  who 
can  price,  to  a  groat,  a  woman's  laces  ;  he,  to  whom  it 
has  always  seemed  as  if,  whatever  sheath  his  bright  flow- 
er-lady wore,  she  informed  it  with  her  own  glory. 

"  I  hope  you  will  enjoy  yourselves,"  she  says,  letting 
her  hand  linger  for  an  instant  in  his,  and  lifting  her 
melancholy  eyes  to  his  face. 

"  We  !  "  he  says,  laughing  softly,  though  his  heart 
misgives  him  ;  "  and  why  not  you  ?  " 

"I  am  not  going,"  she  answers  quietly,  though  her 
eyes  rivet  themselves  with  an  intentness  of  passionate 
jealousy  on  his  face,  to  see  whether  he  looks  sorry 
enough. 

He  steps  back  a  pace  or  two,  loosing  her  hand. 

"  Not  going  ?  "  he  echoes  blankly. 

His  dreams,  his  presage  spoke  true  after  all — worse 


322  BELINDA. 


than  true,  indeed  !  for  have  not  they  tricked  him  with 
the  shadow  of  a  hope  ? 

"  Come  along — come  along  !  "  cries  Sarah  blithely, 
marshaling  her  pack  and  whipping  up  the  stragglers  ; 
"we  are  late  already.  Why  do  not  we  set  off?  Mr. 
Rivers,  will  you  hold  my  parasol  while  I  search  for  my 
pocket  ?  This  is  a  new  gown,  and  a  horrible  misgiving 
seizes  me  that  it  has  not  a  pocket." 

She  addresses  him  so  decidedly  that  he  has  no  alter- 
native but  to  answer  her,  nor  does  she  again  let  him  go. 

Before  Belinda  can  realize  that  it  is  so,  they  are  all 
off,  walking  away  from  her — away  to  the  river  and  the 
willows.  Without  one  word  of  regret  for  her  absence — 
without  even  an  inquiry  as  to  the  cause  of  that  absence 
he  is  gone — gone  a-pleasuring  ! 

His  face  indeed  looked  blank  for  a  moment,  but  for 
how  long,  pray  ?  Does  it  look  blank  still  ?  Will  it  look 
blank  under  the  willows  ?  If  her  withdrawal  from  the 
party  had  been  to  him  what  his  would  have  been  to  her, 
would  he  have  gone  at  all  ?  would  not  he  have  framed  some 
excuse  for  escape  at  the  last  moment  ?  Nor  does  she,  in 
her  unjust  heart-bitterness,  reflect  that  he  could  have  taken 
no  surer  way  of  compromising  the  woman  he  loved  !  Hap- 
pily perhaps  for  her,  she  is  not  long  able  to  give  herself 
up  undisturbed  to  reflections  of  the  above  kind.  She  must 
needs  return  without  further  delay  to  her  treadmill.  It 
is  true  that  the  morning,  and  the  morning's  Menander, 
are  over — ill  as  is  the  Professor,  he  is  not  too  ill  for  Me- 
nander— but  her  afternoon  taskwork  is  still  unperformed  ; 
her  daily  two  hours'  ministrations  to  her  imbecile  mother- 
in-law — two  hours  during  which  that  mother-in-law's  at- 
tendant is  released,  and  sent  out  into  the  fresh  air  to  lay 
in  a  stock  of  ozone  and  endurance  to  support  her  through 
the  other  twenty-two.  The  thought  of  her  fellow- 
drudge  makes  Belinda  remorsefully  hasten  her  steps. 


BELINDA.  323 


What  business  has  she,  with  her  selfish  repinings,  to  defer 
and  shorten  that  other  drudge's  holiday  ? 

"  Do  not  hurry  back,"  she  says  good-naturedly,  as  she 
relieves  guard.  "  It  is  a  lovely  day  ;  take  your  time  and 
enjoy  yourself  ;  I  am  in  no  hurry." 

Oven-like  as  is  the  temperature  of  old  Mrs.  Forth's 
room,  her  easy-chair  is  drawn  up  close  to  the  blazing  fire. 
The  chill  of  extremest  eld  is  upon  her.  Her  mind  is  so 
completely  gone,  that  she  is  incapable  of  recognizing  or 
identifying  even  the  persons  habitually  about  her  ;  nor 
does  her  daily  interview  with  her  daughter-in-law  ever 
begin  with  any  other  phrase  than — 

"  Who  are  you,  my  dear  ?  If  you  will  believe  me,  I 
do  not  know  who  you  are  !  " 

Her  conversation,  which  never  ceases,  consists  of  this 
question  repeated  ad  infinitum  ;  of  inquiries  after  various 
long-dead  members  of  her  family,  supposed  by  her  to  be 
alive  and  sometimes  even  in  the  room  ;  and  of  informa- 
tion such  as  that  her  father  has  been  sitting  with  her  (if  he 
were  alive  he  would  be  one  hundred  and  sixty  years 
old  !)  and  that  it  is  wonderful  how  he  keeps  his  memory. 

Belinda  seats  herself  beside  her. 

After  all,  it  requires  no  great  call  upon  the  intellect 
to  repeat  at  intervals  in  a  slow,  loud  voice  (for,  with  the 
other  faculties,  hearing  too  is  gone)  : 

"  I  am  Belinda  !  Belinda  Forth  —  James's  wife — 
your  son  James's  wife  ! "  varied  occasionally  by  such 
answers  as  these,  called  forth  by  appropriate  inquiries  : 
"  He  is  dead  !  "  "  He  died  twenty-five  years  ago  !  " 
"  Woking  Cemetery  !  " 

But  between  her  mechanical  words  there  is  plenty  of 
room  to  interpolate  thoughts  that  but  little  match  them  : 

"They  must  have  reached  the  river  by  now.  Have 
they  walked  all  the  way  in  the  same  order  as  that  in 
which  they  set  off  ?  He  and  Sarah  ahead,  and  the  rest 


324:  BELINDA. 


herding  behind.  Of  course  they  have.  Since  both  are 
pleased  with  the  arrangement,  why  change  it  ?  How  mur- 
derously hot  this  fire  is  !  Is  it  inside  her  that  it  is  burn- 
ing? They  are  embarked  now.  Have  they  chosen  a 
punt,  or  a  pair-oar  ?  Perhaps  both,  since  there  are  six  of 
them.  In  that  case  the  party  will  divide  ;  but  how  ?  "  It 
is  easy  to  tell,  by  the  writhing  of  her  hands,  in  what 
manner  she  pictures  that  division  effected.  "  Virtually, 
then,  it  will  be  a  tdte-d-tete.  It  will  be  alone  together 
that  they  will  lie  under  the  willows  ! " 

Belinda's  attention  wanders  wide.  Twice  she  has  an- 
swered, "  Woking  Cemetery  ! "  when  she  should  have 
answered  "  James's  wife";  and  is  on  the  point  of  repeat- 
ing the  error  a  third  time,  when  a  vague  fidgetiness  in 
her  interlocutor's  manner — hazily  conscious  of  something 
gone  wrong — recalls  her  to  herself. 

The  two  hours  march  by.  The  nurse  has  taken  her  at 
her  word,  and  is  extending  a  little  the  border  of  her  lib- 
erty. 

Presently  the  Professor  enters  —  enters  to  pay  that 
punctual  daily  five  minutes'  visit,  which  is  the  share  he 
contributes  toward  the  tendance  of  his  parent.  For  a 
wonder,  she  knows  him,  without  being  told  who  he  is. 

"  Where  is  your  father,  James  ?  "  is  her  first  question. 

"  Gone,  my  mother." 

"  Gone!  "  (with  great  animation  and  surprise),  "gone 
where?" 

"To  the  Better  Land,  my  mother"  (very  loud). 

"  Oh,  indeed  !  Well,  I  only  hope  that  they  are  tak- 
ing good  care  of  him  :  if  I  know  that  he  is  well  looked 
after,  that  is  all  I  care  for  !  " 

Belinda  gasps.  She  has  heard  it  all  scores  of  times 
before  :  at  first  with  pitiful  wonder  ;  then  with  a  dreary 
amusement,  and  lastly  with  the  indifferent  apathy  of  use. 
To-day  there  seems  to  be  a  new  and  grisly  jocularity 


BELINDA.  325 


about  it.  This,  then,  is  life  !  A  youth  of  passionately 
craving  and  foregoing  ;  long  pursuing  and  never  over- 
taking ;  of  hearts  that  leap  for  a  moment  and  ache  for  a 
year  ;  of  jealousies  that  poison  food  and  massacre  sleep 
— leading  up  to  an  old  age  of  garrulous  idiocy  !  She  is 
released  at  last :  set  free  to  amuse  herself  as  she  best 
pleases.  But  of  what  amusement  is  a  mind  in  such  tune 
as  hers  capable  ?  She  has  taken  her  hat  in  her  hand,  and 
walks  along  drawing  in  great  gulps  of  the  exquisite  even- 
ing air  ;  while  her  feet,  without  her  bidding,  lead  her  to 
the  river-side. 

Oxbridge  is,  as  every  one  knows,  rich  in  two  rivers, 
and  it  is  to  the  lesser  of  these  streams  that  the  boating- 
party  has  committed  itself.  It  is  this  lesser  stream,  also, 
which,  for  a  short  part  of  its  course,  St.  Ursula's  green 
meadow  and  pleasant  walk  border. 

It  is  without  any  acknowledged  hope  of  meeting  them 
that  she  takes  the  direction  indicated.  Is  it  likely  that 
they  will  be  so  early  returning  ?  Is  it  likely  that  they, 
or  any  one  of  them,  will  be  in  much  haste  to  abridge 
such  an  excursion  ?  Tasting,  as  she  now  does,  the 
delicacy  of  the  air,  viewing  the  homely  loveliness  of 
bushed  bank  and  satin-sliding  river,  she  can  the  better 
and  more  enviously  figure  to  herself  what  its  charm  has 
been.  But  the  air  and  the  motion  do  her  good.  Beside 
her  the  stream  steals  along  —  a  soothing,  sluggish  com- 
panion. No  song  or  rush  has  it,  like  the  flashing  north- 
ern becks  ;  but  what  green  reflections  in  it !  What  long 
water-weeds,  swinging  slowly  to  its  slow  current !  How 
the  willows — pensive  almost  as  olives  in  their  grave,  dim 
leafage  —  have  printed  themselves  on  its  quiet,  silent 
heart !  How  riotously  green  are  the  fat,  low  meadows 
that,  all  winter  long,  the  floods  had  drowned  ! 

Here,  a  May-bush  has  strewed  the  white  largess  of  its 
petals  on  the  water,  and  there  another,  less  overblown, 


326  BELINDA. 


stoops  to  look  at  its  own  pink  face's  double.  There  are 
two  cuckoos  :  one  loud  and  near,  one  soft  and  distant, 
answering  each  other  across  the  meads.  Beneath  the 
bank  at  her  foot,  an  undergraduate  lies  stretched  along 
his  boat,  with  his  book.  Three  others  in  a  punt  are  wag- 
gishly trying  to  upset  each  other.  She  sits  down  on  a 
bench  and  idly  watches  them,  till,  with  shouts  of  young 
laughter,  they  float  out  of  sight.  Another  punt,  a  canoe, 
a  skiff,  a  boat  with  ladies  in  it.  Her  heart  jumps.  Ah, 
no  !  not  her  ladies  !  a  boat  freighted  with  hawthorn- 
boughs  and  guelder-rose  branches,  that  tell  of  a  joyous 
day's  Maying  in  the  country.  Endless  young  gentlemen 
in  flannels,  punting,  sculling,  lying  supine.  She  has  fallen 
into  a  dull  comparison  between  their  gayety  and  her 
own  gloom,  when  her  attention  is  aroused  by  the  sound  of 
a  loud  voice  coming  from  some  bark  yet  unseen,  that  is 
approaching  round  the  corner.  Many  of  the  boys'  voices 
are  loud  :  what  is  there  then  in  the  timbre  of  this  voice 
that  makes  Belinda,  at  the  instant  that  it  strikes  her  ear, 
hastily  rise  and  pursue  her  walk  ?  But  she  might  as  well 
have  remained  seated  on  the  bench. 

A  punt  has  come  into  sight,  guided  with  an  unskill- 
fulness  that  seems  almost  intentional,  by  a  young  man  ; 
colliding  frequently  with  other  punts,  bumping  with  many 
jars  against  the  bank,  and  with  an  ample  female  form  reclin- 
ing complacently — superior  to  bumps  or  jars — in  its  stern. 

"  Stop  !  stop  !  "  she  cries,  gesticulating  with  her  um- 
brella in  a  way  which  alone  would  have  been  enough  to 
identify  her—-"  Belinda  !  Belinda  !  " 

All  the  luxurious  young  gentlemen  turn  their  heads  to 
look.  One  of  the  white  terriers  seated  by  their  masters 
in  boats  sets  up  his  nose  and  howls. 

Reluctant  and  dyed  with  shame,  Belinda  steps  to  the 
water's  edge. 

"George  Sampson  is  taking  me  out  for  a  row  !  "  cries 


BELINDA.  327 


Miss  Watson,  in  a  tone  which  can  leave  no  member  of  the 
University  ignorant  of  the  fact  related  ;  "  his  people 
have  gone  back  to  London.  I  can  not  think  what  induced 
them  to  shorten  their  visit  so  much  ;  they  came  for  a  week. 
Why  should  not  you  get  in  and  come  with  us  ?  I  am  sure 
you  will  be  delighted  "  (appealing  to  her  swain)  "  if  Mrs. 
Forth  will  get  in  and  come  with  us.  We  are  enjoying 
ourselves  immensely  ! " 

The  unhappy  young  man  murmurs  something  that 
may  be  taken  for  assent.  The  perspiration  of  anguish 
pours  from  his  brow,  upon  which  is  written  a  dogged 
shame  and  wrath  too  deep  for  words. 

"  No  ?  "  pursues  the  other,  in  answer  to  Belinda's  em- 
phatic negative  of  her  proposal.  "  You  are  not  so  fond 
of  the  water  as  Sarah,  eh  ?  She  takes  to  it  like  a  young 
duck  :  I  saw  them  setting  off  this  afternoon  ;  they  looked 
such  a  jolly  party.  I  offered  to  join  them,  but  they  evi- 
dently did  not  hear.  Why  did  not  you  go  with  them  ? 
Not  allowed,  eh  ?  " 

Without  looking,  Belinda  is  hotly  aware  that  a  par- 
donable smile  has  stolen  over  the  features  of  more  than 
one  of  the  listening  boys,  at  the  publication  of  her  do- 
mestic secrets.  There  is  not  one  of  them  who  has  not 
dropped  his  book. 

"  I  will  not  keep  you  any  longer,"  she  mutters  in  hasty 
farewell. 

But  Miss  Watson  has  not  yet  done  with  her. 

"  You  should  have  told  the  Professor  that  you  owed 
it  to  your  conscience  to  look  after  Sarah,"  cries  she,  laugh- 
ing resonantly.  "Judging  by  what  I  saw  to-day,  you 
would  not  have  been  far  out  !  " 

Belinda's  cheek,  hot  with  shame  a  moment  ago,  grows 
pale.  The  impulse  to  flee  leaves  her  ;  a  contrary  impulse, 
such  as  draws  the  palpitating  canary  to  the  cage- wires 
and  the  cat's-  claws,  roots  her  to  the  spot. 


328  BELINDA. 


"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  she  asks,  faltering.  "  Was 
she  " — lowering  her  voice,  so  as  not  to  be  heard  by  any 
one  else,  hating  herself  for  descending  to  such  a  question, 
and  trying  to  carry  it  off  with  a  spurious  merriment — 
"  was  she — ha  !  ha  ! — flirting  very  nefariously  with  them 
all?" 

"  With  them  all !  "  repeats  the  other  in  loud  irony  ; 
"  pooh  !  that  would  have  been  nothing  ;  there  is  always 
safety  in  numbers,  the  others  were  nowhere.  Rivers, had 
it  all  his  own  way  ! " 

This  is  what  Belinda  has  been  angling  to  hear,  and 
now  she  has  heard  it.  It  is  not  then  the  figment  of  her 
disordered  fancy  ;  it  must  indeed  be  obvious  to  have  hit 
the  eyes  of  so  coarse  and  casual  an  observer  as  Miss 
Watson.  Nor  does  the  recollection  of  how  much  she  had 
profited  by  her  former  prompt  action  upon  information 
derived  from  the  same  source  recur  to  her  memory. 

"  He  is  a  sad  dog  is  David,  is  not  he  ?  "  cries  the  other 
jocosely  ;  and  then  she  bumps  off  again  in  her  punt,  bawl- 
ing, as  she  floats  down  the  stream,  to  her  oppressed  and 
silent  boatman. 


CfiAPTER  VIII. 

"  Le  monde  n'est  jamais  divise  pour  moi,  qu'en  deux  regions ;  celle 
ou  elle  est,  et  celle  ou  elle  n'est  pas." 

A  WEEK — a  whole  week — only  a  week  !  There  are 
two  opposing  ways  of  looking  at  this  or  any  other  period 
of  time  :  one  of  impatient  marveling  at  its  immensity, 
the  other  of  gasping  consternation  at  its  shortness.  It  is 
needless  to  ask  which  of  these  two  moods  is  Mrs.  Forth's, 
with  regard  to  Rivers's  holiday.  Only  a  week  !  How 
many  times,  during  its  seven  days,  does  she,  with  that  all- 


BELINDA.  329 


answering  phrase,  stop  conscience's  mouth  ?  Of  what  use 
for  only  a  week  to  practice  self-government  ?  of  what  use 
for  only  a  week  to  question,  with  too  nice  a  closeness,  her 
heart  as  to  the  cause  of  its  leapings  and  sinkings  ?  her 
temper  as  to  the  reason  of  its  endless  variabilities  ?  her 
thoughts  as  to  the  path  they  take  ?  or  her  imagination  as 
to  the  length  of  its  tether  ?  Only  a  week  !  Too  short  a 
space  to  do  anything  in  but  enjoy — to  enjoy — to  enjoy  ! 
With  eyes  resolutely  shut  to  the  cost — to  the  heavy  score 
running  up,  that  at  the  week's  end  will  have  to  be  paid. 
Oh,  not  too  short  to  enjoy  in  ! 

It  is  not  all  enjoyment.  Already,  before  two  days  of 
it  are  past,  it  has  been  marred  by  irksome  labor,  by  balked 
expectation,  by  unreasoning  jealousy — a  jealousy  whose 
unreason  she  herself,  in  her  calmer  moments,  recognizes  ; 
which  in  Bivers's  presence  dies  of  famine,  having  less 
than  nothing  to  live  upon,  but,  once  out  of  the  reassur- 
ance of  his  eyes,  revives  and  bulks  big  again. 

Rare  indeed  is  it  for  one  successful  excursion  not  to 
engender  another,  or  several  more.  The  weather  holds. 
The  Professor's  heart  or  liver — it  is  never  quite  clearly 
understood  which  of  these  organs  is  affected — has  recov- 
ered its  balance,  upset  by  his  wife's  Walpurgis-day. 

Belinda  has  three  consecutive  afternoons  of  freedom 
— three  afternoons  of  being  swiftly  pulled  down  the  river, 
that  brave  water-way  alive  with  vigorous  youthhood — of 
gayly  drinking  tea  and  sucking  cider-cup  through  straws 
at  little  river-side  ale-houses — of  picking  the  freakish  fri- 
tillaries  in  the  meadows — of  being  towed  back  in  dreamy 
languor  at  night-fall  or  star-rise — of  loitering  homeward 
with  hands  full  of  flag-flowers — of  parting  at  the  garden- 
gate. 

To  that  parting  there  comes,  each  evening,  a  deeper, 
deadlier  sweetness.  It  does  not  lie  in  words.  There  is 
not  one  word  that,  did  the  Professor  protrude  his  velvet- 


330  BELINDA. 


capped  head  from  his  bower  window,  need  be  with- 
drawn. 

Belinda  is  living  on  her  capital.  At  the  week's  end 
she  will  be  bankrupt ;  let  her  then  be  merry  while  she 
may  !  Perhaps  Sarah  acquiesces  in  her  sister's  view  of 
the  unimportance  of  any  course  of  action  that  must  be 
compressed  into  so  short  a  period  of  time  as  a  week.  Per- 
haps being  in  her  way  wise,  she  recognizes  the  futility  of 
interference.  Perhaps  her  hands  are  too  full  of  her  own 
affairs  to  have  much  time  or  attention  to  spare  for  her 
sister's  ;  for  seldom  has  Miss  Churchill  been  in  such  amor- 
ous straits  of  her  own  making  as  at  present. 

The  course  of  allurement  which  had  merely  warmed 
up  the  heavy  German  soldiers  into  a  pleasant  and  manage- 
able tenderness,  has  wrought  three  inflammable  English 
boys  to  a  white  heat.  Daily,  and  in  proportion  as  their 
inconvenient  ardor  for  Sarah  increases,  does  their  friend- 
ship for  each  other — close  and  warm  to  begin  with — de- 
cline, and  tend  toward  the  opposite  pole  of  animosity. 
On  the  last  expedition  but  one,  she  dare  no  longer  accept 
a  bunch  of  fritillaries  from  one,  without  instantly  crowd- 
ing her  hands  with  a  similar  bunch  from  each  of  the 
others.  She  can  now  never  drink  less  than  three  cups  of 
afternoon  tea ;  as  that  affords  to  each  an  opportunity  of 
handing  her  one.  Even  Bellairs,  early  convinced  of  the 
hopelessness  of  his  adoration  of  Mrs.  Forth,  is  now  wholly 
hers,  far  more  wholly  indeed  than  she  at  all  wishes. 

"  I  am  fast  getting  to  hate  the  sight  of  them ! "  she 
cries,  in  a  tone  more  nearly  approaching  tearful  vexation 
than  is  often  to  be  heard  in  her  joyous  voice,  as  she  and 
her  sister  patrol  in  their  wonted  fashion  the  garden,  on 
the  morning  of  the  week's  last  day.  "None  of  them" — 
by  this  comprehensive  phrase  she  always  designates  the 
noble  army  of  her  admirers,  past  and  present — "none  of 
them  have  ever  given  me  half  so  much  trouble  ;  why  can 


BELINDA.  331 


not  they  understand  that  it  is  not  the  fox  I  care  for,  but 
the  chase  ?  " 

"  It  will  be  soon  over,"  replies  Belinda  slowly. 

She  says  it  as  a  consolation  to  her  sister,  but  the  ap- 
plication that  she  makes  is  to  herself. 

"  That  is  all  very  fine,"  replies  Sarah  gloomily  ;  "  but 
there  is  still  to-day.  You  know  that  we  are  to  go  on  the 
New  River  this  afternoon  ;  and  in  a  weak  moment  I 
promised  that  ugly  Bellairs — but  I  declare,"  with  a  burst 
of  petulance,  "  that  they  bother  me  so  that  I  do  not  know 
whether  I  am  on  my  head  or  my  heels — that  he  should 
scull  me  in  some  little  cockle-shell — a  dinghy r,  he  calls  it — 
he  and  I,  and  nobody  by,  you  know,"  with  a  laugh  of 
annoyance ;  "  and  I  positively  dare  not  tell  the  others. 
What  am  I  to  do  ?  I  suppose,"  with  something  of  her 
old  sidling,  coaxing  manner,  "  that  you  would  not  care  to 
break  it  to  them  ?  " 

Belinda  smiles — a  bitter  smile  of  recollection. 

"  As  I  was  to  break  to  Mr.  Forth  that  you  meant  to 
jilt  him?  Thank  you!  I  think  not !" 

It  is  true  that  the  last  day  has  come  ;  and  the  last 
excursion.  All  through  the  previous  night,  all  morning, 
Belinda  has  been  dogged  by  the  icy  terror — no  weaker 
word  suffices — that  something  may  occur  to  prevent  it. 
She  has  asked  after  the  Professor's  organs,  with  a  solici- 
tude whose  treachery  makes  her  blush.  The  very  un- 
bearableness  of  the  idea  lends  it  a  horrid  probability.  In 
this  our  life  are  not  the  things  too  bad  to  be  faced,  those 
that  oftenest  happen? 

The  hour  comes — the  meeting  at  the  corner  (never 
again  have  the  enamored  youths  ventured  across  the 
threshold  of  the  house  they  have  desecrated  !) — the  walk 
to  the  river.  Sarah  has  vainly  tried  to  hook  herself  on  to 
her  sister  ;  but — Bellairs  having  out-manoeuvred  his  fel- 
lows, and  compelled  them  to  content  themselves  with  the 


332  BELINDA. 


chaperone  of  a  former  expedition,  civilly  invited  to  com- 
plete the  party — has  dropped  resignedly  behind  with  him, 
her  face  sufficiently  revealing  that  she  is  braced  for  the 
worst. 

The  river  is  reached.  In  the  choosing  the  boats  and 
arranging  the  cushions  a  little  diversion  is  effected,  which 
gives  Sarah  the  opportunity  to  pluck  her  sister  by  the 
sleeve,  and  pull  her  aside. 

"  It  is  all  up,"  she  says  morosely  ;  "  he  has  been  tell- 
ing me  as  we  came  along  that,  if  he  read  my  eyes  aright, 
he  was  far  from  indifferent  to  me  ! " 

"  And  you  ?  what  did  you  say  ?  " 

"  What  did  I  say  ? "  (in  a  tone  of  extreme  exaspera- 
tion, and  yet  unwilling  amusement).  "  I  told  him  that 
he  had  read  them  awrong ;  but " — with  a  rueful  glance 
at  the  little  craft  now  being  made  ready  for  her  reception 
— "you  must  perceive  that  the  dinghy  has  become  an 
impossibility  ;  what  is  to  be  done  ?  There  is  not  room 
for  us  all  in  the  other  ;  quick  !  " 

For  a  moment  Mrs.  Forth  looks  before  her  in  blank 
perplexity  ;  then,  all  at  once,  an  idea,  habited  in  a  sudden 
lovely  blush,  rushes  into  her  mind.  Why  not  ?  Is  not  it 
the  last  day  ?  But  she  does  not  at  once  clothe  it  in 
speech.  Instead : 

"Can  not  you  persuade  Mrs.  Baker  to  take  your 
place  ?  "  she  asks. 

Sarah  shrugs  her  shoulders  impatiently. 

"  She  would  not  hear  of  it ;  she  is  inclined  to  scream 
in  a  punt !  " 

There  is  no  help  for  it,  then.  What  other  alternative 
can  she  propose  ?  It  is  no  fault  of  hers  ;  accident,  rather 
— fate — ill-luck !  She  has  done  her  best.  How  often 
during  the  past  week  has  she  told  herself  that  she  has 
done  her  best ! 

"I  suppose,  then,  that  I  must  sacrifice  myself,"  she 


BELINDA.  333 


says  hurriedly,  and  not  looking  at  her  sister ;  and  then, 
several  voices  at  once  calling  upon  them,  they  rejoin  the 
rest  of  the  party. 

In  a  moment,  as  if  some  devil  were  behind  her — or 
what  in  her  present  frame  of  mind  would  seem  to  her 
both  more  dangerous  and  more  ugly — some  amorous  un- 
dergraduate, Sarah  has,  to  insure  herself  against  ambush 
or  surprise,  skipped  into  the  larger  boat. 

"My  sister's  courage  has  failed  her,"  says  Belinda, 
standing  flushed  and  downcast-eyed  on  the  bank.  "  I  am 
afraid  that  some  one  will  have  to  scull  me  instead." 

No  one  answers,  and  she  steps — some  one  giving  her 
a  hand — into  the  dinghy.  Some  one  instantly  follows 
her,  and  takes  up  the  sculls.  It  is  not  till  they  are  well 
out  in  the  stream,  and  not  immediately  even  then,  that 
she  lifts  her  eyes.  A  sort  of  shame  weighs  them  down. 

The  manoBuvre  was  none  of  hers  ;  and  yet  it  is  by  a 
manoauvre  that  she  has  secured  this  final  tete-d-tete  with 
him.  She  does  not  even  know  whether  it  is  in  accordance 
with  his  wishes  that  she  has  acted.  He  has  expressed 
no  pleasure  in  the  arrangement ;  perhaps — her  jealousy 
awaked  in  a  moment  from  its  always  light  sleep — he  is 
vexed  to  have  been  balked  of  Sarah's  company.  Per- 
haps even  now  he  is  silently  fighting  with  his  disappoint- 
ment. 

She  snatches  a  fugitive  glance  at  him — a  glance  that, 
in  an  instant,  is  turned  away  again  ;  for  it  has  told  her 
what  she  wished  to  learn,  The  cause  of  his  dumbness  is 
one  which  does  not  very  often  make  us  speechless  in  this 
our  life.  He  can  not  speak  for  joy. 

She  leans  back  satisfied  and  smiling.  The  New  River 
is  narrower,  less  of  a  great  highway  than  the  old  one. 
Here  are  no  imperative  Eights,  out  of  whose  way  all 
lesser  boats  must  clear,  under  penalty  of  being  apostro- 
phized by  a  ferocious  "  Look  ahead>  sir  !  "  and  then  run 


334  BELINDA. 


down.  And  yet  there  is  no  lack  of  company  here  either, 
on  this  splendid  summer  day. 

Above  the  pale,  bright  sky,  holding  her  forget-me- 
not-colored  shield  ;  and  below,  the  windings  of  the  slow 
broad  river,  and  the  great  expanse  of  hedgeless  meadow- 
land.  The  horses,  summering  there,  stand  knee-deep  in 
the  stream,  eating,  or  pretending  to  eat,  the  weeds  ;  one 
having  a  wet  roll  of  utter  enjoyment  in  the  shallows. 
Sheets  of  little  ranunculus  are  all  ablow,  each  stiff, 
straight  stem  and  small  white  head  erect  on  the  water. 
Countless  geese  stalk  along  the  meadow,  waddling  and 
cropping  the  grass.  Others,  like  a  white  fleet,  paddle 
and  dive  for  water-weeds. 

Into  the  midst  of  this  feathered  Armada  they  see  the 
larger  boat,  which  has  shot  ahead  of  them,  being  lustily 
pulled  to  give  it  a  fright  ;  instigated  thereto  by  Sarah, 
who  under  the  segis  of  a  female  friend,  and  with  Bellairs 
pulling  stroke,  and  consequently  divided  from  her  by 
nearly  the  whole  length  of  the  boat,  has  resumed  her 
usual  hilarity,  and  by  voice,  gesture,  and  waved  parasol, 
is  encouraging  her  slaves.  The  geese  part,  screeching  and 
oaring  away  ;  and  one  gosling,  overtaken  by  the  prow, 
dives  and  rises  again  ten  paces  away. 

Both  Rivers  and  Belinda  laugh.  There  is  something 
healthy  and  cheering  to  the  moral  atmosphere  in  a  joint 
laugh.  Rivers's  mirth  dies  into  a  long  sigh  of  content- 
ment. 

"  What  a  day  !  "  he  says,  resting  on  his  oars,  and  star- 
ing up  at  the  sky.  "  I  love  the  river  ;  how  I  missed  it  at 
first  !  I  used  to  dream  about  it !  it  was  one  of  the  things 
that  I  dreaded  dreaming  about !  " 

She  does  not  ask  him  what  the  others  were.  Possibly 
she  is  incurious. 

"  Perhaps,"  he  says,  bringing  his  eyes  down  again 
from  the  heaven  above  him,  to  the,  to  him,  better  heaven 


BELINDA.  335 


of  her  face,  "perhaps  it  is  worth  while  to  have  a 
holiday  only  once  in  two  years,  to  enjoy  it  as  I  have 
done  mine  ! " 

As  he  speaks,  a  slight  frown,  not  of  displeasure  at  his 
harmless  words,  but  of  reflection  and  doubt,  puckers  her 
forehead. 

"Are  you  sure,"  she  says  slowly,  "that  it  is  quite  the 
first  holiday  that  you  have  had  in  two  years  ?  " 

He  looks  surprised. 

"Virtually  yes.     Why?" 

"  Nothing  !  "  she  answers  in  confusion  ;  "  only  I  hap- 
pened to  hear  that  you  were  in  London  last  winter." 

"  I  was,"  he  answers  calmly,  though  still  surprised. 
"Our  firm  sent  me  up  on  business  ;  that  was  no  holiday." 

"And  you — you  combined  business  with  pleasure?" 
she  says,  laughing  awkwardly.  "  You — you  went  to  the 
play?" 

Difficult  as  it  is  to  look  him  in  the  face,  while  guiltily 
conscious  of  the  drift  of  her  question,  she  yet  eagerly 
fastens  upon  him  a  glance  whose  keenness  no  least  tinge 
of  discomfiture  can  escape.  But  none  such  meets  her. 
He  has  resumed  his  leisurely  rowing,  but  now  stops 
again. 

"  Were  you  there  ?  "  he  cries  abruptly.  "  Is  it  possi- 
ble that  I  missed  you  ?  I  looked — I  thought — I  hoped." 

She  shakes  her  head. 

"  I  was  not  there  !  I  was  not "  (with  a  twinge  of 
self-pity,  as  she  recalls  her  then  mood) — "  I  was  not  in  a 
very  play-going  humor  ;  but  I  was  told  by  some  one  who 
had  seen  you  ! " 

Surely  he  will  now  volunteer  the  mention  of  the  lady 
by  whom  he  was  accompanied.  She  has  paused  on  pur- 
pose to  give  him  the  opportunity,  but  he  does  not  take  it. 
He  leans  on  his  sculls,  staring  before  him  in  wistful  bitter 
thought. 


336  BELINDA. 


"You  were  with  a  lady,"  says  Belinda  presently, 
unable  any  longer  to  contain  herself. 

"  A  lady  ?  "  he  says  starting.  "  Was  I  ? — oh,  of  course, 
my  sister.  Poor  girl !  she  had  not  been  anywhere  for 
so  long,  that  she  was  naturally  keen  about  it.  She  was 
staying  with  an  aunt  who  gave  us  our  stalls  ;  otherwise," 
with  a  laugh,  "  in  the  then  state  of  our  finances,  the  shil- 
ling gallery  would  have  been  nearer  our  mark." 

So  it  is  explained.  How  simple  it  sounds  !  how  ob- 
vious !  What  is  there  in  it,  upon  which  any  but  a  mad- 
woman could  have  hung  distrust  or  jealousy  ?  And  yet 
it  is  upon  this  cock-and-bull  story  that  she  elected  to 
shipwreck  her  life  !  A  sailing-boat,  lurching  and  tack- 
ing, and  heeling  over,  after  the  manner  of  such,  and  out 
of  whose  way  they  have  to  get,  rouses  them  both,  and 
they  row  on. 

The  larger  boat  has  pulled  into  the  bank,  in  order  to 
set  the  two  dogs,  in  whom  Sarah  affects  to  detect  symp- 
toms of  incipient  sea-sickness,  on  shore,  where  they  in- 
stantly begin  to  give  a  great  deal  of  trouble. 

Punch — a  dog  of  no  ballast  of  mind,  entirely  losing 
his  head  in  joy  at  his  enlargement — first  frolicsomely  nips 
the  sleepy  horses'  heels,  a  civility  which  they  return  by 
viciously  lashing  out  at  him  ;  then  chivies  the  geese,  a 
levity  which  calls  forth  from  the  husband  and  father  an 
awful  chastisement  of  flapping  wings,  outstretched  neck, 
and  dreadfully  wide-opened  mouth.  Slutty,  on  the  other 
hand,  for  reasons  best  known  to  herself,  has  set  off  gal- 
loping in  the  wrong  direction,  with  her  tail  between  her 
legs.  Her  recapture  and  the  recovery  and  admonishment 
of  Punch  take  so  long,  that  the  couple  in  the  dinghy 
have  time  to  get  far  ahead,  and,  rounding  a  reach  of  the 
river,  to  lose  their  companions  from  sight.  On  and  on 
they  float  in  their  virtual  aloneness,  for  in  nothing  do  the 
two  men  punting,  or  the  happy  young  fellow  shooting 


BELINDA.  337 


past  in  his  skiff,  disturb  their  solitude.  They  speak  ever 
less  and  less.  Now  and  again,  indeed,  silence  becomes 
too  oppressive,  and  they  speak :  but  then  speech  grows 
over-pregnant,  and  they  fly  back  to  silence. 

Both  are  strung  up  to  pleasure's  highest  pitch,  that 
pitch  for  which  they  will  have  to  pay,  and  know  that 
they  will  have  to  pay  so  extortionately  ;  for  pleasure,  like 
the  scorpion,  is  an  animal  that  carries  a  sting  in  its  tail. 
Upon  enjoyment  is  set  its  keenest  edge.  The  lark,  lost 
in  light  above  them,  might  be  their  spokesman,  only  that 
to  their  song,  unlike  his,  there  is  ever  that  minor  refrain  : 
"  The  last  day  !  the  last  day  ! " 

What  a  nameless  unreckoning  elation  the  warm 
breeze  lends,  and  the  motion  and  the  very  throbbing  of 
the  gentle  water  against  the  passing  keel !  She  pulls  up 
her  sleeve,  and  dipping  in  her  bared  right  arm,  affects  to 
imitate  his  gestures,  and  to  oar  the  stream  with  it. 

"  I  am  helping  you,"  she  cries,  smiling.  "  I,  too,  am 
rowing  ;  do  you  find  any  perceptible  help  ?  " 

He  does  not  reply.  He  rows  slowly  on  in  a  dream, 
his  eyes  intoxicatedly  watching  that  pendent  hand  and 
swaying  lily  wrist.  He  always  thinks  her  last  word  or 
action  prettier  and  better  than  all  its  predecessors.  But 
surely  she  can  never  outdo  this.  He  might  borrow  Flo- 
rizel's  words  without  a  changed  syllable  : 

"What  you  do, 

Still  betters  what  is  done.    When  you  speak,  sweet, 
I'd  have  you.  do  it  ever.    When  you  sing, 
I'd  have  you  buy  and  sell  so  ;  so  give  alms  ; 
Pray  so ;  and,  for  the  ordering  of  your  affairs, 
To  sing  them  too.     When  you  do  dance,  I  wish  you 
A  wave  of  the  sea,  that  you  might  ever  do 
Nothing  but  that :  move  still,  still,  so, 
And  own  no  other  function.    Each  your  doing, 
So  singular  in  each  particular 
Crowns  what  you're  doing  hi  the  present  deeds, 
That  all  your  acts  are  graces," 
15 


338  BELINDA. 


He  pulls,  still  in  a  dream,  beneath  the  willows.  A 
poplar,  shivering  perpetually,  flutters  and  trembles 
against  the  sky's  perfect  azure  over  their  heads.  Still  in 
a  dream,  and  at  her  orders,  he  leaves  her  lying  pensive 
and  cool  on  her  cushions,  and  scrambles  into  the  field  to 
fetch  flowers  for  her.  He  comes  back  with  a  great 
nosegay,  which  he  lays  in  her  lap  :  yellow  flags,  becca- 
bunga,  forget-me-nots  bigger  and  bluer  than  the  petted 
garden  ones,  a  scrap  of  catch-fly,  a  handful  of  stitch- 
worts,  powdery  purple  grasses,  all  plucked  hap-hazard, 
and  yet  gathered  into  such  a  perfect  posy  as  no  after- 
arranging,  or  sorting,  or  matching  of  colors  could  com- 
pass. She  tells  him  so.  Was  ever  man,  for  so  poor  a 
gift,  so  royally  thanked  ? 

Their  companions  have  passed  them  again  ;  the  dogs 
re-embarked,  and  the  whole  company  singing  a  gay  part- 
song,  none  other  than  "  The  Franklin's  Dogge  "  : 

"B  with  a  Y;  Y  with  an  N;  N  with  a  G;  G  with  an  0; 
And  he  called  him  little  Byngo." 

How  entrancingly  sweet  and  merry  sound  the  non- 
sensical old  words  across  the  water  !  Belinda  and  Rivers 
must  needs  follow  them  to  the  rendezvous — the  little 
rural  Trout  Inn,  where  they  are  to  have  tea.  It  is 
brought  out  to  them  in  an  arbor  overlooking  the  stream, 
by  a  stout  wench  ;  thick  bread  and  butter,  great  wedges 
of  plain  cake,  a  tea-set  where  no  two  articles  are  of  the 
same  make  or  pattern. 

Sarah,  having  tided  over  her  Bellairs  difficulty,  and 
restored  to  her  happy-go-lucky  confidence  of  being  able 
to  keep  the  rest  of  her  team  well  in  hand,  is  in  delightful 
spirits.  There  are  too  many  other  visitors  at  the  Trout 
to  make  any  more  glees  advisable  ;  but  she  is  good 
enough  to  indulge  the  company  with  several  quiet  per- 
formances of  a  juggling  nature,  which  make  no  noise, 


BELINDA.  339 


and  need  attract  no  attention — such  as  sticking  halfpence 
into  her  eyes,  and  disposing  them  ingeniously  about  her 
other  features. 

Belinda,  too,  is  in  wild  mirth — as  wild  as  that  of  the 
unlucky  day  of  blind  -  man's  -  buff.  She  is  not  nearly  so 
clever  with  the  halfpence  as  her  sister ;  but  in  point  of 
mere  animal  spirits  she  almost  exceeds  her.  When,  how- 
ever, the  tea-party  and  its  humors  are  ended — when,  in 
their  former  order,  they  are  on  their  way  home  again — 
those  factitious  spirits  drop  like  a  wind  at  sunset. 

The  feast  is  all  but  over  ;  surely,  since  the  world  was, 
never  has  any  been  so  poignantly  relished.  In  each  mo- 
ment have  not  they  tasted  a  hundred  years  of  ordinary 
tame  pleasures  ?  But  it  is  now  nigh  being  done,  and  pay- 
day stands  at  the  door.  The  light  is  low  and  level  ;  the 
geese  have  gone  to  bed,  gray  head  and  yellow  nose 
tucked  beneath  gray  wings.  The  horses'  shadows  stretch, 
longer  than  cameleopards,  across  the  meadow.  There  is 
scarcely  any  need  to  use  the  oars,  wind  and  current  help- 
ing them  ;  they  are  floating — oh,  how  swiftly  ! — to  where 
the  one  great  dome,  and  the  many  spires,  momently  grow- 
ing taller,  tell  where  the  fair  city  lies. 

The  last  hour  of  the  last  day  is  running  out.  When 
that  dome  and  those  spires  are  reached,  it  will  have  run 
out.  The  last  hour  !  How  many  things  there  are  to  be 
said  in  a  last  hour  !  And  yet  the  only  phrase  that  will 
rise  to  either  of  their  lips  is,  "  It  is  the  last  time  !  "  Even 
to  that  they  do  not  give  utterance  :  not  until  they  have 
slidden  more  than  half-way  home.  Then,  at  the  sight  of 
those  rapidly  nearing  spires — those  spires  that  mean  the 
end — a  sort  of  panic  seizes  Belinda  : 

"  How  fast  we  go  !  "  she  says,  half -breathlessly  look- 
ing down  as  if  she  would  fain  stop  it  on  the  lovely  even- 
ing water,  quickly  swishing  past  with  a  pleasant,  low, 
sucking  sound  ;  we  shall  be  home  in  ten  minutes  ! " 


340  BELINDA. 


"  In  ten  minutes  !  "  he  repeats,  in  a  tone  half -mazed, 
as  of  one  not  realizing  the  sense  of  the  words. 

"  And  it  is  the  last  time  !  "  she  says,  very  low. 

Still  the  keel  quickly  cutting  the  flood,  and  the  water 
sucking.  Why  so  fast  ?  In  pity,  why  so  fast  ?  The 
very  sun — their  last  sun — seems  hurrying  more  rapidly 
than  his  wont  to  his  hot  rose  and  cowslip  colored  bed. 
At  first  they  had  had  days  ahead  of  them — such  riches 
seem  incredible — then  hours,  now  minutes,  and  but  few 
of  them — so  few  that  surely  there  is  not  one  of  them  to 
be  wasted  !  Perhaps  it  is  this  thought  that  sends  such  a 
passion  of  haste  into  the  words  with  which  he  answers 
her : 

"  Why  should  it  be  the  last  time  ?  " 

She  receives  the  suggestion  in  dead  silence — a  silence 
so  dead  as  to  give  him  time  for  a  cold  pang  of  fear  that 
he  has  employed  these  priceless  moments  in  offending 
his  dear  lady,  and  that  she  will  part  from  him  in  dis- 
pleasure. If  his  hand  were  laid  upon  her  heart,  he  would 
know  why  she  did  not  speak.  In  the  last  drunken  week, 
she  has  not  once  had  the  courage  to  look  her  life,  that  is 
to  be,  in  the  eyes.  Who,  squandering  and  rioting  in  the 
now,  dare  ever  face  the  then  ?  At  last  she  stammers  : 

"  How  should  not  it  be  the  last,  since  your  holiday 
ends  to-morrow  ?  " 

"  And  am  I  never  to  have  another  ?  " 

He  is  lying  on  his  oars  now  ;  but  still  the  boat  drifts, 
drifts.  She  shakes  her  head  with  a  little  unhopeful  smile  ; 
though  surely  no  hopeless  heart  ever  leaped  and  sprang 
as  hers  is  doing. 

"  Perhaps  in  another  two  years  !  " 

His  oars  are  quite  out  of  the  water  ;  he,  at  least,  will 
have  no  share  in  accelerating  the  end.  The  drops  gently 
drip  from  their  blades.  Twilight  is  taking  her  first  gray 
steps  across  the  plains,  and  the  warm  dew  falls.  Two  or 


BELINDA.  341 


three  of  their  dwindling  store  of  minutes  are  gone  before 
Rivers  speaks. 

"  Term  will  soon  be  over,  then  you  will  go  away,  I 
suppose  ?  " 

"  I  think  not — probably  not,"  she  answers,  indifferent- 
ly, an  unacknowledged  disappointment  at  the  apparent 
irrelevance  of  his  remark,  at  his  want  of  insistence  upon 
his  former  suggestion,  chilling  heart  and  voice. 

"  You  will  stay  here  all  through  the  Long  ?  " 

Why  is  there  such  a  catch  in  his  breath  as  he  asks 
this  question  ?  What  is  it  to  him  whether  she  goes  or 
stays  ? 

"  Most  likely.  Mr.  Forth  will  go  to  Switzerland ;  I 
believe  he  mostly  does  ;  but  he  will  not  take  me." 

"  He  will  leave  you  here  ?  " 

«  Yes." 

"Alone?" 

"  Unless  you  count  my  mother-in-law  as  society,"  with 
a  slight,  satiric  laugh. 

A  pause.  A  flight  of  plovers,  going  bed  ward,  speck 
the  sky  above  them. 

"  Will  not  you — will  not  you — be  lonely  ?  " 

"  Not  more  than  usual." 

"  Will  not  most  of  your  friends  have  gone  ?  " 

Again*  she  laughs,  and  her  laugh  is  of  the  same  un- 
merry  character  as  before. 

"With  my  good- will  they  may  all  go  ;  I  am  no  great 
hand  at  making  friends." 

Another  pause.  The  plovers  have  dwindled  to  noth- 
ing ;  the  other  boat  is  lost  to  sight,  far  ahead.  What  is 
he  going  to  say  that  makes  him  fidget  so  uneasily  with 
his  unused  oars  ? 

"  It  is  really  no  great  distance  from  Yorkshire  here." 

Again  she  laughs  ;  but  the  irony  is  gone,  driven  away 
by  a  tremor  that  is  even  further  from  gayety. 


34:2  BELINDA. 


"  My  geography  is  not  my  strong  point,  but  I  should 
have  scarcely  thought  that  they  were  neighboring  coun- 
ties." 

"  Milnthorpe  is  not  more  than  five  hours  from  here,  by 
a  good  train." 

"Is  not  it?" 

And  then  again  there  is  silence.  How  twilight  is 
taming  day's  gaudiness  !  but  doing  it  with  so  lovesome 
a  mien,  that  who  can  regret  the  gone  greens  and  blues  ? 

"  I  could — "  he  begins.  How  dry  his  throat  is  !  *  He 
would  be  glad  of  a  draught  from  the  river  to  moisten  it. 
"  I  could — run  down — for  Sunday — now  and  then." 

It  is  out  now  !  For  good  or  for  evil,  it  is  said  ;  and 
in  uncontrollable  anxiety  he  leans  forward,  the  better  to 
read  in  her  face  how  she  takes  it. 

She  is  as  dead  silent  as  she  had  been  at  his  first  sug- 
gestion of  the  possibility  of  their  meeting  again  ;  but  per- 
haps he  has  learned  to  interpret  that  silence  better.  Must 
not  she  needs  set  some  order  in  that  riotous  heart  of  hers 
before  she  can  speak  at  all  ?  Surely  the  earth  is  mistaken 
in  thinking  that  night  is  coming.  Is  not  it  the  morning 
that  is  born  ?  His  hand  has  lifted  a  corner  of  the  great 
night-curtain  that  has  hung,  black  and  impenetrable,  be- 
fore her  future  life.  Dare  she  let  him  lift  it  all  ? 

"  Only  now  and  then  !  Not  often  !  "  he  says  in  great 
agitation.  "  If  you  have  not  a  soul  to  speak  to  for  four 
months,  you  might  not  mind  seeing  me  now  and  then — 
quite  now  and  then  !  " 

Not  mind  seeing  him  !  At  that  she  can  not  choose 
but  smile. 

"  We  knock  off  work  early  on  Saturday,  and  there  is 
a  fast  train  that  would  take  me  back  in  good  time  for 
Monday  morning." 

There  is  such  a  desperate  urgency  of  asking  in  his  eyes 


BELINDA.  343 


that  she  dare  not  look  at  him.  What  can  she  answer  ? 
Still  that  unmastered  riot  in  her  heart !  and  how  near  the 
landing-place  is  growing  !  All  the  sail-boats  with  furled 
sails  and  lowered  masts  ;  all  the  row-boats  gathered 
home. 

"  It  is  rather  a  mad  plan  !  "  she  says,  with  a  laugh 
that  has  a  touch  of  the  hysteric. 

"  Is  it  ?  "  he  answers,  blankly.     "  I  suppose  it  is." 

There  are  not  more  than  eight  boat-lengths  to  go.  In 
those  eight  boat-lengths  she  must  decide  one  way  or  the 
other  ;  for  the  rest  of  the  party  are  gathered  in  hilarious 
talk  about  the  landing-place — "  Little  Byngo,"  and  many 
other  worthy  part-songs  having  wrought  one  and  all  to 
the  highest  pitch  of  good-fellowship — waiting  for  them. 

"  Oxbridge  is  not  my  private  property,"  she  says,  al- 
most inaudibly,  and  shaking  like  a  poplar-leaf,  that  is 
never  still ;  "  you  have  other  friends  here  besides  me." 

"  I  have,"  he  answers,  catching  at  her  suggestion,  with 
a  relief  proportioned  to  the  consternation  with  which  his 
eye  has  been  measuring  the  half-dozen  yards  left  him  in 
which  to  plead  his  cause.  "  Why  should  not  I  come  to 
see  them  ?  " 

Nor  have  either  he  or  she  the  candor  to  own  to  them- 
selves or  each  other  what  is  perfectly  well  known  to  both, 
that  in  the  long  vacation  Oxbridge  will  be  innocent  of 
the  presence  of  any  one  of  those  friends.  This  is  their 
real  parting. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  week  and  Rivers  are  both  gone.  Belinda's  life  has 
returned  to  its  old  channel — the  channel  in  which  it  ran  be- 
fore the  party  at  St.  Ursula's.  The  weather  has  ceased  to 
be  a  matter  of  the  slightest  interest.  It  is  not  of  the  least 


344  BELINDA. 


consequence  what  weather  there  is,  or  whether  there  is  any 
weather  at  all.  Done  with  are  all  tappings  of  weather- 
glasses, watchings  of  the  march  of  clouds.  The  door-bell 
may  ring  itself  off  its  wire,  without  making  her  attention 
swerve  by  one  hair's-breadth  from  Menander,  or  inter- 
fering at  all  with  the  coherence  and  patience  of  her  an- 
swers to  her  mother-in-law  as  to  the  date  at  which  they 
are  going  to  bury  that  mother-in-law's  husband,  whose 
obsequies  appear  to  have  been  unaccountably  deferred  for 
twenty-five  years.  There  is  no  more  talk  of  water-par- 
ties. Sarah  herself,  too  late  convinced  of  the  peril  of 
those  excursions,  confines  herself  and  her  followers  to  safe 
games  of  tennis  in  well-overlooked  public  places,  where 
they  will  have  no  chance  of  reading  her  eyes  either  right 
or  wrong,  or,  at  all  events,  of  telling  her  the  result  of 
their  readings.  Mrs.  Forth's  life  has  resumed  the  tame 
course  which  it  was  taking  on  the  day  of  Sarah's  arrival ; 
but  how  different  a  spirit  now  guides  it !  Whither  have 
flown  the  sullen  discontent,  the  dull  revolt,  the  rare  mirth 
that  bit,  and  the  frequent  irony  that  pricked  and  stung  ? 
Now,  if  the  Professor  be  cross,  she  shrugs  her  shoulders 
good-humoredly.  He  is  old  !  He  means  nothing  by  it ! 
It  is  an  infirmity.  After  all,  why  should  she  mind  ? 
How  does  it  hurt  her  ?  If  he  keeps  her  slaving  long 
beyond  her  canonical  hours  in  his  close  study,  why  so 
much  the  more  does  she  enjoy  afterward  the  breath  of  the 
garden  and  the  white  pinks  bursting  so  quickly  into  spicy 
bloom.  If  he  complain  of  his  affection  of  heart,  liver,  or 
spleen,  she  is  equally  ready  to  believe  in  and  sympathize 
with  each  and  all,  to  suggest  remedies,  or  apply  them. 

Never  has  Sarah  been  more  puzzled,  or  her  sagacity 
put  more  at  fault,  than  by  her  sister's  behavior.  For  it  is 
not  the  mood  of  a  day.  The  consciousness  of  being  ob- 
served, and  of  the  necessity  for  self-control,  might  have 
lent  her  for  a  while  a  spurious  cheerfulness  ;  but  could  it 


BELINDA.  345 


have  given  her  that  easy,  unforced  serenity  which  lasts 
undimmed  through  Sarah's  stay — which,  indeed,  shows 
every  symptom  of  holding  out  indefinitely  beyond  it  ? 
It  is  riot  from  the  post,  as  Miss  Churchill  at  first  sus- 
pected, that  she  derives  her  support. 

The  postman's  arrival  obviously  causes  her  not  a  flut- 
ter ;  nor  does  she  exhibit  the  slightest  tendency  toward  a 
surreptitious  posting  of  her  own  letters — worst  sign  that 
can  appear  in  a  connubial  heaven.  It  is  not,  then,  upon 
a  clandestine  correspondence  that  she  is  feeding  and 
blooming,  so  fair  and  fine.  That  an  undoubtedly  hard- 
working common  hand,  or,  still  more,  foreman  in  an  iron- 
foundry,  would  be  likely  soon  to  have  another  leisure 
week  at  his  disposal,  seems  to  her  improbable.  That 
Belinda  can  be  nourishing  any  hopes  of  a  visit  to  Miln- 
thorpe  seems  to  her  more  improbable  still.  That,  satis- 
fied with  the  sight  of  her  lost  love,  she  can  have  settled 
down  contentedly  into  the  perennial  jog-trot  of  an  exist- 
ence without  him,  seems  to  her  most  improbable  of  all. 

She  watches  her  sister  narrowly  ;  sees  her  severe  lips 
surprised  now  and  then  into  an  apparently  causeless 
smile  ;  catches  her  singing  under  her  breath,  as  she  waters 
her  drouthy  plants  ;  sees  her  staid  walk  about  the  garden, 
occasionally  inclined  to  degenerate  into  a  light-hearted 
run  with  the  dogs.  But  she  does  not  surprise  her  secret. 
And,  meanwhile,  time  goes  on.  The  yearly  gayeties, 
with  which  the  summer  term  at  Oxbridge  concludes,  are 
over  and  gone.  Mrs.  Forth,  chaperoning  her  sister,  has 
taken  part  in  them  all — balls,  f§tes,  theatre  ;  has  seen  the 
Masons  dance  in  their  aprons,  and  heard  the  undergradu- 
ates in  all  the  glory  of  their  immemorial  screeching.  She 
has  taken  part  in  all,  and  has  apparently  enjoyed  them 
with  a  wholesome,  temperate  gayety  ;  as  far  removed 
from  the  unnatural  elation  of  the  blind-man's-buff,  as 
from  the  inert  gloom  of  the  previous  period. 


346  BELINDA. 


With  Term  is  to  end  Sarah's  visit  ;  and  on  the  day 
following  her  departure  the  Professor  is  to  shoulder  his 
valise  for  the  Bernese  Oberland. 

The  morning  on  which  Mrs.  Forth  is  to  lose  her  sister 
has  come.  Sarah  is  taking  her  last  stroll  round  the  flower- 
beds, and  across  the  square  of  sward  over  which  she  and 
Belinda  have  walked  so  many  miles.  Mrs.  Forth  has  just 
joined  her,  issuing  from  the  house  with  the  end  of  a 
laugh  still  lingering  about  her  mouth  and  eyes. 

"  You  seem  amused,"  says  the  other,  turning  to  meet 
her.  "  May  I  be  permitted  to  inquire  the  cause  ?  " 

"  It  is  nothing  !  "  replies  Belinda,  bubbling  over  again 
with  mirth.  "  It  is  a  shame  to  laugh  at  her,  only  it  is  so 
difficult  to  help  it.  Mr.  Forth  has  just  been  reading  the 
Collect  for  the  day  to  his  mother  ;  and  at  the  end  she 
said  to  him  :  '  You  read  very  nicely,  my  dear  ;  and,  when 
you  are  a  little  older,  you  will  read  better  still ! ' } 

Sarah  joins  in  the  laugh,  but  not  warmly. 

"  And  this,"  she  says  indignantly,  "  is  the  compan- 
ion with  whom  you  are  to  be  left  t$te-d-t2te  for  four 
months  ! " 

Belinda  bends  her  charming  head  in  a  nod  of  cheerful 
acquiescence. 

"  It  is  monstrous  !  "  continues  Miss  Churchill,  with  a 
growing  energy  of  ire.  "  It  is  beyond  belief  !  I  have  a 
good  mind  now,  at  the  last  moment,  to  give  him  a  piece 
of  my  mind  !  Where  is  he  ?  "  glancing  threateningly 
toward  the  windows  of  the  house.  "Let  me  take  him 
red-handed  in  the  act  of  packing  his  portmanteau  !  " 

There  is  such  a  doughty  purpose  in  her  voice  and  her 
pink  porcelain  face,  that  Belinda,  seizing  her  arm  in  ap- 
prehensive detention,  cries  : 

"Do  not!  It  would  be  no  use.  Do  you  remember 
the  proverb  about  putting  the  finger  entre  Parbre  et 
Vecorce?  And  I — I  do  not  want  to  go  with  him." 


BELINDA.  347 


At  the  last  words,  she  has  turned  her  head  slightly 
aside. 

"  Do  you  think  that  he  would  be  a  pleasant  traveling- 
companion  ? "  she  goes  on  rapidly,  perceiving  that  her 
sister  does  not  make  any  rejoinder,  but  only  looks  at  her 
searchingly.  "  Do  you  remember  how  ashamed  we  used 
to  be  when  he  haggled  over  the  groschen  at  Dresden?  A 
tour  with  him  would  be  one  colossal  blush." 

"  It  is  a  choice  of  evils,  of  course,"  says  Sarah,  dispas- 
sionately. "Perhaps  my  early  passion  blinds  me,  but 
personally  I  should  prefer  him." 

"Should  you?" 

"  Four  months  !  "  repeats  Miss  Churchill,  in  almost 
awed  reflection.  "  How  many  times,  at  a  rough  calcula- 
tion, in  four  months,  will  you  tell  her  who  you  are  ;  and 
that  there  is  a  foolish  prejudice  in  favor  of  burying  people 
before  they  have  been  dead  twenty-five  years  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  I  shall  end  by  joining  her  in  the  belief  that 
my  father-in-law  is  still  above-ground,"  replies  Belinda, 
but  she  says  it  in  a  tone  of  such  unassumed  equanimity, 
that  again  Sarah  regards  her  with  astonishment. 

"  Four  months  !  "  she  repeats,  a  third  time.  "  Do  you 
mean  to  tell  me  that  you  are  not  desperate  at  such  a  pros- 
pect ?  " 

"  Of  course  I  am — desperate  !  " 

But  there  is  not  a  touch  of  desperation,  or  even  of 
milder  sadness,  in  her  voice. 

"  How  do  you  mean  to  live  through  it  ?  " 

"  How  do  people  endure  existence  on  these  occa- 
sions ?  " 

She  has  knelt  on  the  spring  turf,  and  is  cutting  one 
after  one,  a  score  of  young  and  dewy  pinks,  to  comfort 
her  sister  during  her  dusty  up- journey  ;  carefully,  and 
with  the  grudging  hand  of  a  real  flower-lover,  choosing 
those  that  are  budless  :  no  easy  feat,  for  there  is  scarcely 


348  BELINDA. 


one  that  has  not  a  gray-green  successor  beneath  its  per- 
fumed wing. 

"  Eating,  drinking,  sleeping,  yawning  !  " 

"Are  you  quite  sure  that  you  will  have  no  other  sup- 
port ?  "  asks  Sarah  abruptly,  and  yet  slowly. 

For  a  moment  the  garden-scissors  in  Mrs.  Forth's  hand 
cease  their  clipping,  and  remain  suspended  and  open,  like 
that  other  pair  which  snipped  her  namesake's  love-lock, 
while  a  dye  as  opulent  as  that  of  the  new  peony,  whose 
birth  the  garden-border  this  morning  greeted,  stains  even 
the  milk-colored  nape  of  her  stooped  neck. 

"  I — I — do  not  know  what  you  mean,"  she  says,  cold- 
ly ;  "  what — what  other  support  should  I  have  ?  " 

"  Belinda,"  says  the  other,  dropping  down  on  the 
sward  beside  her,  and  griping  her  shaking  hand — scissors, 
pinks,  and  all — in  her  own  little  eager  clasp,  "  why  should 
not  I  come  back  and  keep  you  company  ?  I  may  not  be 
a  very  intellectual  companion,  but  at  least  I  have  a  firmer 
hold  upon  my  few  facts  than  has  your  poor  mamma-in- 
law.  Let  me  come  back  ;  we  will  have  Jane  down,  and 
Punch  shall  show  her  the  University  " — with  a  not  very 
assured  laugh.  "  Let  me  come  !  " 

But  the  hands  so  urgently  pressed  give  no  answering 
pressure.  Upon  the  half -averted  face  comes  no  glow  of 
sisterly  pleasure  or  acceptance.  A  senseless  suspicion  has 
flashed  across  Mrs.  Forth's  mind  that  the  present  propo- 
sition on  Sarah's  part  may  be  an  impromptu  fait  d  loisir; 
that  it  may  have  been  arranged  between  her  and  Rivers  ; 
that  here  may  lie  the  secret  of  his  eagerness  to  repeat  his 
visit  ;  that — in  fact  whatever  angry  gibberish  jealousy 
may  whisper  to  a  mind  ripe  and  ready  for  its  reception. 

Under  pretext  of  resuming  her  pink-cutting,  she  has 
withdrawn  her  unwillingly-captured  hand  ;  but  she  is  no 
longer  careful :  the  unblown  buds  fall  as  freely  as  the 
opened  flowers. 


BELINDA.  349 


"  And  give  up  Cowes  and  Scotland  ?  "  she  says  in  a 
dry  voice  ;  "  and  what  would  granny  say  ?  " 

"  It  would  not  be  of  the  slightest  consequence  what  she 
said,"  replies  Sarah,  smothering  bravely  a  disappointment 
none  the  less  sharp  for  being  mastered  at  her  sister's  re- 
ception of  her  proposal ;  "  you  are  aware  that  my  grand- 
mother's words  have  always  been  to  me  as  the  idle  wind  ; 
which,  I  believe,  is  one  main  reason  of  the  sincere  regard 
and  respect  that  she  cherishes  for  me.  If  granny  is  the 
only  stumbling-block — " 

"  I  could  not  think  of  being  so  selfish  ! "  interrupts 
Belinda  hastily,  not  allowing  her  sister  to  finish  her  sen- 
tence. 

"  There  would  be  no  selfishness  if  I  liked  it,"  says 
Sarah  persistently  ;  "  and — you  may  wonder  at  my  taste, 
but  I  should  like  it." 

Belinda  has  risen  from  her  knees,  and  has  turned  to  a 
damask  rose-bush,  to  lay  it  under  contribution  for  her 
nosegay. 

"  It  is  so  perfectly  unnecessary,"  she  says,  cutting  fe- 
verishly away  ;  "  you  are  tilting  against  windmills.  I 
make  no  complaint  ;  I  think  it  no  hardship  to  be  alone. 
I  am  not  like  you,  miserable  if  I  am  left  five  minutes  to 
my  own  society  !  " 

There  is  such  a  strain  of  impatience  through  her 
speech,  that  Sarah  reluctantly  desists,  nor  are  many  more 
words  exchanged  between  them.  The  cab  is  at  the  door. 
The  luggage — cursed  of  cabmen — has  been  hoisted  on  the 
top.  Punch  is,  at  Mrs.  Forth's  petition — a  petition  cer- 
tainly not  backed  up  by  Slutty — to  be  left  on  a  visit  to 
her. 

The  moment  of  parting  has  come.  Sarah  apparently 
wishes  that  that  parting  shall  take  place  without  wit- 
nesses. She  draws  her  sister  back  into  the  drawing-room, 
and  shuts  the  door. 


350  BELINDA. 


"  Belinda,"  she  says,  when  she  has  somewhat  coldly 
kissed  her,  looking  in  her  face  with  a  gravity  that  only 
once  or  twice  before  in  the  course  of  their  lives  has  Mrs. 
Forth  seen  written  on  those  small  gay  lineaments — "  Be- 
linda, I  wash  my  hands  of  you  ;  I  would  have  helped 
you  if  I  could.  I  have  no  reason  for  saying  so — I  know 
nothing,  and  you  will  tell  me  nothing  ;  but  I  can  not  help 
thinking  that  you  are  going  to  the  devil,  and  that  you  are 
taking  David  Rivers  with  you  !  " 

Then,  without  another  word,  she  is  gone.  Without 
one  last  look  from  the  cab-window,  without  a  farewell 
friendly  hand- wave  ;  forgetting  even  to  bid  good-by  to 
the  dogs,  or  take  their  messages  to  Jane,  she  is  gone. 
For  some  minutes  Belinda  remains  standing  on  the  exact 
spot  at  which  her  sister  had  left  her  ;  remains  standing, 
still  and  stunned.  Then  she  suddenly  throws  herself  into 
the  Professor's  arm-chair,  and  spreads  her  hands  over  her 
face.  She  would  like  not  to  let  a  quarter  of  an  inch  of 
it  remain  uncovered.  The  light  is  strong  and  brutal. 
She  would  like  to  draw  the  blinds  down,  and  shut  the 
shutters.  "  Going  to  the  devil,  and  taking  David  JRivers 
with  you  !  "  The  blood  is  singing  loudly  in  her  ears.  It 
seems  to  take  the  form  of  these  words.  Over  and  over 
again.  The  moment  the  sentence  is  ended,  it  begins 
afresh.  How  long  she  lies  there — outwardly  a  log,  in- 
wardly a  shameful  fire — she  neither  knows  nor  cares. 
But  after  a  while,  a  tide  of  indignation  sets  in  through 
all  her  being,  chasing  before  it  the  shame,  and  she  sits  up. 

"  What  disgraceful  words  for  her  own  sister  to  apply 
to  her  !  and  what  slightest  ground,  excuse,  palliation 
even,  had  she  for  so  insulting  her  ?  Going  to  the  devil! 
And  pray,  what  is  it  to  go  to  the  devil  ?  Is  it  to  fulfill 
with  nice  scrupulosity  every  tasteless  or  even  nauseous 
duty  of  a  most  dreary  life  ?  To  sing  as  she  walks  her 
treadmill  ?  To  smile  patiently  over  her  oakum-picking  ? 


BELINDA.  351 


To  forego  her  own  hot  bright  youth,  and  clip  down  its 
rich  proportions  to  the  meager  pattern  of  the  dry  and 
crabbed  age  with  which  it  is  mismated  ?  To  be  a  secre- 
tary without  pay,  a  drudge  without  wage,  a  souffre  dou- 
leur  without  hope  of  enlargement,  a  prisoner  the  term  of 
whose  incarceration  lies  in  the  hands  of  arbitrary  death  ? 
If  this  be  to  go  to  the  devil,  then  she  is  not  only  going 
there,  but  has  long  ago  gone. 

She  laughs  sarcastically,  and  her  feverish  limbs  carry 
her  up  and  down  the  room.  If  Sarah  had  given  her  time, 
this  is  how  she  would  have  answered  her — thus  and  thus. 
For  a  while  she  walks  to  and  fro,  muttering  under  her 
breath,  framing  withering  sentences  of  self -exculpation, 
that  must  carry  conviction  to  any  mind.  But  that  mood, 
too,  passes.  As  her  wrath — spent  and  exhausted — sub- 
sides, another  voice,  lower  yet  more  penetrating,  takes  its 
place.  Going  to  the  devil !  Is  going  to  the  devil  to  have 
a  husband  whose  pursuits  you  abhor,  whose  infirmities 
you  secretly  deride,  at  whose  accidental  touch  you  shiver  ? 
Is  going  to  the  devil  to  be  speeding  with  disloyal  alacrity 
that  husband's  departure,  to  be  counting  the  hours  to  the 
end  of  your  only  sister's  visit,  to  be  living  and  feeding 
and  flourishing  upon  a  hope  that  you  dare  not  look 
in  the  face,  that  you  would  sooner  die  than  impart  to 
any  soul  that  breathes?  Is  this  to  be  going  to  the 
devil  ? 

She  has  again  wholly  hidden  her  face  with  her  hands. 
Again  the  light  seems  over-strong  and  pushing.  And 
plain  and  distinct,  beyond  possibility  of  misapprehension, 
the  answer  comes — "  Yes  !  yes  !  yes  !  " 

A  couple  of  hours  later  the  Professor  lifts  a  head,  a 
good  deal  reddened  and  exasperated  by  long  burrowing 
in  the  bowels  of  a  portmanteau,  to  see  his  pale  wife  enter 
his  room. 


352  BELINDA. 


"  I  came  to  see  whether  I  could  help  you,"  she  says 
gently,  though  in  a  spiritless,  flat  voice. 

"  The  idea  has  occurred  to  you  somewhat  late  in  the 
day,"  replies  he  ungraciously.  "  It  was  fortunate  for  me 
that  I  did  not  depend  upon  your  offers  of  assistance,  vol- 
unteered this  morning." 

"  I  was  bidding  Sarah  good-by,"  she  answers,  apolo- 
getically, and  without  any  trace  of  resentment  at  his  tone. 

"  She  has  been  gone  exactly  three  hours  and  a  half," 
replies  he,  dryly,  glancing  at  the  clock. 

She  offers  no  further  justification,  but  kneeling  down 
on  the  floor,  lets  her  hands,  which  tremble  perceptibly, 
stray  rather  purposelessly  over  the  books  strewed  upon  the 
carpet. 

"  Pray,  mind  what  you  are  about ! "  he  cries  sharply  ; 
"  you  are  doing  more  harm  than  good." 

"  They  are  to  go,  are  not  they  ?  "  she  says,  lifting  a 
heavy  folio,  and  looking  humbly  up  at  him. 

"  I  am  obliged  to  omit  Augustine,  Irenaeus,  and  sev- 
eral books  of  reference,  as  they  would  entail  very  con- 
siderable expense  upon  me  in  excess  of  weight,"  he  re- 
plies, peering  down  through  his  spectacles  at  his  strewed 
treasures.  "  I  the  less  regret  it  as,  since  I  am  taking  no 
secretary  with  me — " 

How  very  white  her  face  is  !  Has  she  had  some  sud- 
den scare  ? 

"  Why  are  not  you  taking  a  secretary  ?  "  she  asks,  in 
a  very  low  voice.  "  Why — why  do  not  you  take  me  f  " 

He  shifts  the  focus  of  his  vision  from  Irenaeus  to  her 
face  ;  but  apparently  the  latter  object  gives  him  less 
tranquil  pleasure  than  did  the  former. 

"  You  have  never  expressed  the  slightest  desire  to  ac- 
company me,"  he  answers,  chillingly. 

She  hangs  her  head,  a  guilty  consciousness  staining 
her  pallor  red. 


BELINDA.  353 


"Have  not  I?  Perhaps  I  thought  that  you  did  not 
want  me." 

There  is  a  deliberate  pause  before  he  answers,  and 
her  heart  goes  down,  down.  He  is  about  to  accept  her 
offer !  But  his  first  words  reassure  her. 

"  I  can  see  no  object  that  would  be  gained  by  such  a 
change  of  plan,"  he  replies,  in  a  key  that  plainly  shows 
his  annoyance  at  the  suggestion  having  been  made.  "  I 
go  in  search  of  health  ;  a  quest  which  you,  happily  for 
yourself,  have  no  need  to  pursue." 

She  draws  a  long  breath  of  relief ;  but  now  that  the 
danger  of  acceptance  seems  less  imminent,  her  scruples 
return.  Sarah's  stinging  phrase  begins  to  ring  again  in 
her  ears." 

"You — you  forget  that  I  shall  be  all  alone  here," 
she  says,  nervously  fidgeting  with  the  already  packed 
portion  of  the  portmanteau. 

"  You  will  have  my  mother." 

She  shrugs  her  shoulders. 

"She  can  hardly  be  reckoned  as  a  companion." 

At  her  capricious  and  untimely  opposition,  his  fore- 
head gathers  into  vexed  wrinkles. 

"  Since  it  appears  that  your  own  society  has  such  ter- 
rors for  you,  you  are  at  liberty  to  invite  your  sister  to 
come  and  share  your  solitude." 

Again  the  guilty  head  stoops. 

"She — she  has  engagements  of  her  own." 

"So  I  should  have  imagined,"  replies  he  with  a  disa- 
greeable smile  ;  "  but  you  can  scarcely  hold  me  responsi- 
ble for  them." 

Another  pause.  She  is  aimlessly  wrapping  paper 
round  one  of  the  volumes  that  are  not  wanted,  that  are 
not  to  be  taken  eruditely  tripping  to  the  Alps.  She  will 
make  one  more  effort.  If  that  fail,  no  one,  not  even 
Sarah,  can  blame  her. 


354:  BELINDA. 


"  Does  not  it  strike  you  that  I  shall  be  very  dull  here, 
all  by  myself  ?  "  she  asks,  timorously  eying  him. 

"  I  have  always  understood,  upon  your  own  authority, 
that  you  were  indifferent  to,  if  not  averse  from,  amuse- 
ments," he  answers  irritably. 

"  Not  now — not  now  !  "  she  cries  feverishly.  "  Even 
if  I  were  so  formerly,  I  am  not  now  ;  and  even  if  I  were 
— to  be  alone  for  four  months  !  " 

"You  exaggerate  grossly,"  returns  he  sharply. 
"  There  are  many  residents  who  do  not  leave  Oxbridge 
until  the  end  of  July,  and  many  who  return  at  the  begin- 
ning of  September." 

"They  will  do  me  no  good,"  she  says  excitedly. 
"  How  will  they  help  me  ?  " 

He  shrugs  his  shoulders  silently,  as  who  should  say 
that  upon  one  lost  in  such  mazes  of  inconsequence  and 
irrationality  breath  would  be  wasted. 

"  Do  you  remember  that  I  am  young  ?  "  she  says,  in 
a  hard  low  voice,  rising  from  her  knees  and  approaching 
him. 

"  It  is  certainly  not  your  fault  if  I  do  not,"  replies  he 
peevishly  ;  "  for  you  are  good  enough  to  remind  me  of 
the  fact  often  enough." 

"It  is  because  you  always  act  as  if  you  forgot  it," 
retorts  she,  her  temper  rising  under  his  tone. 

"  I  confess  that  I  fail  to  see  how  your  juvenility  af- 
fects the  present  case,"  he  says  satirically. 

"  Do  you  ?  "  she  answers  with  a  scorching  blush,  that 
seems  to  burn  inside  as  well  as  outside  her.  "  Some  men 
might  think  that  I  was  too  young  to  be  left  to  my  own 
devices  ;  that  I — I  might  get  into  mischief  !  " 

He  has  taken  off  his  spectacles  in  order  to  rub  their 
glasses.  He  now  deliberately  replaces  them,  and  regards 
her  attentively  through  them. 

"  I  presume,"  he  says  deliberately,  "  that  that  last  re- 


BELINDA.  355 


mark  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  pleasantry,  though  I  fail  to 
see  the  point  of  it." 

"  I  am  so  much  given  to  pleasantries,"  she  says  bit- 
terly. "  We  are  so  apt  to  joke  with  one  another  :  are 
not  we?" 

"  It  seemed  difficult  to  treat  such  an  observation  seri- 
ously," returns  he,  in  a  measured  voice  of  displeasure. 
"  What  mischief,  may  I  ask,  are  you  likely  to  get  into, 
here  under  the  shelter  of  your  own  roof,  and  in  the  quiet 
performance  of  your  regular  duties  ?  I  can  not  but  think 
that  the  alarm  under  which  your  labor  is  an  unnecessary 
one." 

For  all  answer,  she  turns  abruptly  away — the  in- 
finitely difficult  confession  which  she  was  half-heartedly 
struggling  to  make  to  him,  frozen  back  by  his  gibe. 

"  You  have  evidently  a  most  flattering  confidence  in 
me,"  she  says,  adopting  his  tone.  "  I  do  not  quite  know 
what  I  have  done  to  deserve  it." 

As  a  reply,  the  Professor  turns  thoughtfully  back  to 
his  folios,  weighing  the  dispensability  or  indispensability 
as  a  traveling-companion  of  each,  with  an  air  of  having 
dismissed  the  subject,  and  of  resolutely  waiving  further 
consideration  of  so  senseless  a  matter. 

His  wife  stands  dubiously  watching  him. 

"  I  do  not  know  why  we  are  sneering  at  each  other," 
she  says  at  last,  in  a  disturbed  voice.  "  I  had  not  any  in- 
tention of  sneering  when  I  came  here.  I  came  here  to 
ask  you  in  all — good  faith"  (he  does  not  perceive  the 
slight  hesitation  which  prefaces  the  last  two  words)  "  to 
take  me  with  you — will  you  ?  " 

To  so  point-blank  an  appeal  he  must  provide  an  an- 
swer of  some  kind  ;  though  nothing  can  be  clearer  than 
that  he  would  rather  have  relegated  the  affair  to  the  limbo 
of  a  contemptuous  silence. 

"  I  am  unable  to  understand  you,"  he  says  with  slow 


356  BELINDA. 


annoyance.  "At  the  last  moment,  and  when  my  plans 
are  fully  matured,  and  could  only  be  remodeled  at  great 
inconvenience  to  myself,  you  suddenly  appear  with  a  pro- 
posal entirely  to  disintegrate  them.  Had  you  any  good 
reasons  to  show — "  (She  has  good  reasons  enough,  God 
wot !  but  looking  at  the  unlovely  and  unloving  rigor  of 
his  face,  she  feels  that  to  die,  to  be  flayed  alive — what- 
ever things  in  short  have  been  reckoned  hardest  of  endur- 
ance since  the  world  was,  are  but  as  child's  play  com- 
pared to  what  the  telling  them  to  him  would  be.)  "  Since, 
then,"  he  continues,  with  an  air  of  judicial  coldness,  and 
not  thinking  it  worth  while  to  finish  his  former  sentence, 
"  it  is  dictated  merely  by  a  puerile  caprice — " 

"  It  is  not  caprice,"  she  stammers  urgently,  in  puissant 
excitement. 

"  If  it  is  not  caprice,  nothing  can  be  easier  than  to 
prove  it,"  rejoins  he  coolly,  and  so  turns  again  on  his  heel. 

Behind  his  back  she  makes  a  gesture  as  of  one  that 
throws  up  a  game.  Is  not  he  in  the  right  ?  Has  not  he 
a  show  of  reason  and  justice  on  his  side  ?  Why  not  ac- 
quiesce without  further  kicking  against  the  pricks  ?  But 
yet  something  drives  her  to  a  last  attempt.  Although 
thrice  baffled,  although  at  each  new  discomfiture  her  heart 
has  sprung  up  in  joyful  relief,  she  will  press  her  suit  once 
more. 

"  You  know  that  women  never  have  any  reasons  to 
give,"  she  says  with  a  laugh  that  has  borrowed  something 
from  its  opposite — a  sob,  and  in  a  gentler  voice  than  that 
which  she  is  wont  to  think  soft  enough  for  converse  with 
him  ;  "  but  sometimes  their  instincts  lead  them  right.  I 
— I  think  that  you  had  better  take  me  with  you  ! " 

Envenomed  by  her  pertinacity,  he  wheels  around  upon 
her  viciously. 

"  Perhaps  you  will  be  good  enough  to  expose  your  rea- 
sons," he  says,  "  premising,  that  is  to  say,  that  they  are 


BELINDA.  357 


such  as  a  person  of  ordinary  common  sense  can  permit 
himself  to  listen  to." 

"  I  should  not  be  much  in  your  way,"  she  says  hum- 
bly, and  going  so  far — for  her  it  is  immensely  far — as 
to  lay  her  fair  hand  on  his  coat-sleeve ;  "  of  course  my 
society  would  be  no  great  gain  to  you,  but  I  could  make 
myself  useful ;  I  could  pack  and  unpack  for  you  ;  I  have 
learned  your  ways  thoroughly  by  this  time.  It  would  be 
odd,"  with  a  sad  little  laugh,  "  if  I  had  not ;  and  if  yon 
had  one  of  your  attacks  I  could  nurse  you  !  " 

She  has  made  her  plea,  and  with  eyes  that  feel  dry, 
and  breath  that  comes  short,  awaits  its  prosperity  or  mis- 
carriage. For  a  while  he  eyes  her  with  silent  suspicion. 

"  It  would  be  a  most  unnecessary  expense,"  he  says  at 
last,  shortly. 

"  I  should  not  expect,  I  should  not  wish  for,  any  luxu- 
ries," she  answers,  her  pleading  growing,  perhaps,  the 
more  earnest  from  her  consciousness  of  the  intensity  of 
the  wish  for  its  ill-success  that  goes  with  it.  "  I  drink  no 
wine,  and  I  do  not  eat  much." 

"  Pshaw  !  "  retorts  he,  with  angry  ridicule  ;  "  are  you 
simple  enough  to  suppose  that  the  hotel  tariffs  vary  ac- 
cording to  the  number  of  mouthf uls  you  swallow  ?  " 

"  I  have  no  objection  to  traveling  third-class  ;  I  should 
never  ask  for  a  sitting-room  ;  I  am  quite  capable  of  rough- 
ing it,"  she  urges  tremulously. 

"  No  doubt !  no  doubt !  "  he  answers  tartly  ;  "  all  the 
same,  you  would  more  than  double  the  expense." 

"  And  if  I  did  ?"  she  says  firmly — for  is  not  this  her 
last  appeal,  and  is  not  she  bound  to  make  it  no  pretense, 
but  a  real  and  thoroughly  earnest  one  ? — "  what  need  that 
matter  to  you  ?  You  are  well  off,  and  " — lowering  her 
voice  a  little — "  you  have  no  one  to  come  after  you." 

Perhaps  the  plea  is  not  a  judicious  one.  No  man  likes 
to  be  reminded  that  he  will  stand  or  fall  alone  ;  that  he 


358  BELINDA. 


is  without  a  stake  in  the  generations  to  come.  At  all 
events,  on  hearing  it,  his  features  assume  a  look  even  more 
acrid  than  that  which  they  wore  before. 

"  I  must  request  you  to  consider  the  subject  as  closed," 
he  says  with  a  decision  against  which  there  is  no  appeal. 
"I  have,  for  reasons  which  appear  sufficient  to  myself — 
and  I  ask  no  other  arbiter — come  to  a  final  decision  upon 
it ;  pray  let  us  hear  no  more  of  it." 

"  As  you  please,"  she  answers,  bowing  acquiescently 
a  head  whose  cheeks  have  suddenly  resumed  their  carna- 
tions, and  its  eyes  their  young  dance  ;  "I  suppose,  as  you 
say,  that  you  know  your  own  affairs  best,  but  I  think  I 
have  heard  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  being  '  penny  wise 
and  pound  foolish.' " 


CHAPTER  X. 

41  How  sad  and  bad  and  mad  it  was ! 
But,  then,  how  it  was  sweet ! " 

THE  Professor  has  been  gone  a  parson's  week.  For 
the  same  period  of  time  Mrs.  Forth  has  been  testing  the 
genuineness  of  her  appetite  for  solitude  ;  nor  finding  it 
fail  beneath  the  experiment.  Perhaps  it  is  the  extreme 
clearness  of  her  conscience  that  upholds  her  ;  for,  do  not 
we  all  know,  either  by  its  possession  or  its  lack,  that 
there  is  no  cheerf  uller  companion  than  a  clear  conscience  ? 
nothing  that  gives  such  a  zest  to  appetite,  or  such  a  point 
to  occupation  ?  And  can  any  one  be  in  fuller  possession 
of  this  innocent  luxury  than  Belinda?  Has  not  she 
craved  with  meek  persistency  leave  to  share  her  husband's 
travels  ?  and,  reluctantly  compelled  to  abandon  this  hope, 
has  not  she  provided,  with  wifely  care,  for  every  possible 


BELINDA.  359 


need  that  may  assail  him  on  that  sanitary  excursion,  for 
whose  loneliness  none  can  blame  her  ? 

Did  she  forget  his  Etna  ?  or  his  eider-down  ?  or  his 
air-cushion  ?  Did  she,  as  many  a  spouse,  though  other- 
wise meritorious  might  easily  have  done,  omit  his  tin  of 
digestive  biscuits  ?  Was  there  lacking  from  his  kit  at 
his  departure  one  of  his  heart-drops,  liver-pills,  spleen 
boluses  ? 

What  but  the  consciousness  of  a  duty  performed  both 
generously  and  minutely  could  enable  her  to  wave  her 
hand  at  the  fly-window  with  so  collected  a  friendliness  ; 
smile  such  a  serene  "  JSon  voyage  "  to  the  jewel  of  which 
that  fly  is  the  casket  ?  To  assume  an  inconsolable  grief 
would  be  absurd,  and  would  take  him  in  even  less  than 
herself  ;  but  there  is  no  hypocrisy  in  crying,  "  A  good 
journey  to  you  !  " 

As  she  returns  up  the  graveled  drive,  she  stoops  to 
pick  up  a  small  stone.  How  brightly  it  shines  ! 

"  Is  it  a  strayed  agate  or  beryl  ?  " 

"  Pooh  !  "  (throwing  it  down  again),  "  it  is  only  a  peb- 
ble ;  it  is  only  the  late  shower  and  the  present  sun  that 
have  turned  it  into  a  temporary  gem." 

But  the  same  rich  metamorphosis  seems  to  have  taken 
place  in  the  case  of  every  object  upon  which  her  eye 
alights.  Did  ever  bountiful  rose-tree  show  such  a  wealth 
of  come  flowers  and  coming  buds,  as  the  "  Captain 
Christy  "  against  the  study-wall  ?  Was  ever  little  Philis- 
tine drawing-room  so  rich  in  gold  motes  lustily  astride 
on  the  sunbeams  ?  Even  the  very  dogs,  the  well-known 
dogs,  seem  to  wear  an  air  of  better  breeding ;  manners 
of  higher  finish  ;  tails  of  more  watch-spring  curl  than  on 
any  previous  morning.  Even  the  parrot's  profanities — in 
point  of  fact,  very  commonplaces  of  blasphemy,  uttered 
with  an  Oxbridge  accent — have  won  a  raciness  never  be- 
fore theirs. 


360  BELINDA. 


She  wanders  from  room  to  room,  as  it  were  taking 
possession.  Are  not  they  all  her  own,  her  very  own  now  ? 
Even  without  the  explanation  to  that  effect,  which,  in 
pure  wantonness  of  spirits,  she  has  vouchsafed  separately 
to  Punch  and  Slutty,  they  seem  perfectly  to  understand 
that  they  are  now  at  liberty  to  rumple  the  chair-covers, 
clatter  down  the  fire-irons,  oppress  the  cats  as  freely  as 
their  soul  listeth  ;  that  there  are  no  longer  any  nerves 
in  the  house,  any  dyspepsia,  any  learning.  Nor  does  the 
passage  of  the  hours  and  days  bring  with  it  any  sensible 
alteration  in  this  mood,  of  either  hers  or  theirs. 

Daily  she  sees  the  piled  vehicles  rolling  past  to  the 
station  ;  carrying  her  fellow-townsmen  away  to  their 
holiday  ;  stampedes  of  whole  large  small  families  to  the 
sea-side  (the  new  Oxbridge  swarms  and  perambulates  and 
crawls  with  little  children,  all  apparently  of  the  same  age 
to  a  day)  ;  hardy  young  couples  winging  bold  flights  to 
the  North  Cape,  or  more  modest  Dolomites.  She  wishes 
them  all  a  happy  time  and  safe  return  ;  but  not  a  twinge 
of  envy  goes  with  one  of  them. 

Home  is  good  enough  for  her  ;  England  far  enough  ; 
Oxbridge  fair  enough.  Even  Sarah's  parting  words,  at 
first  so  rankling  with  poisonous  sting,  grow  gradually 
powerless  to  hurt.  She  begins  to  think  of  them  at  first 
with  indignation,  next  with  indifference,  and  at  last  even 
with  a  lofty  kind  of  compassionate  forgiveness. 

"  It  is  the  speakers  of  such  calumnious  utterances," 
she  says  to  herself,  without  conscious  sophistry,  "not 
those  to  whom  they  are  addressed,  whom  they  injure." 

She  lets  her  mind  run  with  complacency  round  the 
circle  of  her  accurately  fulfilled  duties.  Is  there  one  in 
a  thousand  who,  considering  the  nature  of  those  duties, 
would  fulfill  them  as  accurately  ?  Has  not  she,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  tasks  imposed  upon  her  for  fulfillment  during 
his  absence  by  her  husband,  voluntarily  undertaken  to 


BELINDA.  361 


make  a  new  catalogue  of  his  library,  as  a  wifely  surprise 
for  him  upon  his  return  ?  Does  she  scant,  by  one  mo- 
ment, the  time  of  her  visits  to  his  mother  ?  Has  not  she 
rather  enlarged  them  by  nearly  a  daily  hour  ?  Is  not  the 
nurse  ready  to  lick  her  feet,  for  her  consideration  and 
unselfish  sharing  of  that  nurse's  burden  ?  Does  her  pa- 
tience ever  for  an  instant  fail  under  the  old  lady's  sense- 
less catechisms  ?  Can  anything  surpass  the  painstaking 
discretion  with  which  she  conducts  the  Professor's  corre- 
spondence, left  behind  him  in  her  charge  ?  or  the  respect- 
ful punctuality  and  amplitude  of  her  own  letters  to  him  ? 
Nor  is  her  self-satisfaction  less  when  she  considers  her 
pleasures.  Might  not  every  member  of  the  University, 
every  inhabitant  of  the  world,  if  he  saw  fit,  have  leave 
to  pry  into  each  moment  of  her  leisure,  as  of  her  occupa- 
tions ? 

The  happy  gardenings — weeding  the  border,  with  the 
dogs  yawning  their  hearts  out  beside  her,  in  affectionate 
endurance  of  a  pastime  they  are  so  far  from  participat- 
ing— dogs  hate  gardening ;  they  see  no  sense  in  it :  of 
what  use,  pray,  to  dig  a  hole,  when  you  have  no  bone  to 
bury  in  it  ? — the  long  country  walks  to  the  elm-shaded 
rural  villages,  and  through  the  late  June  fields,  where 
man  has  sown  his  corn  and  God  has  thrown  in  his  pop- 
pies ;  the  return  home,  poppy-laden,  to  make  the  house 
one  scarlet  bower,  though  it  is  embellished  for  only  her 
own  eye. 

Never  has  that  eye  seemed  so  open  to  see.  Never  has 
her  ear  seemed  to  be  laid  so  close  to  the  heart  of  the 
mighty  mother,  to  hear  its  beatings.  Never  till  this  year 
had  she  learned  all  the  music  that  lies  even  in  the  trum- 
peting gnat  and  the  booming  evening  chafers.  Never 
had  she  grown  into  such  familiar  friendship  with  the 
woodland  birds.  All  her  life,  of  course,  she  has  known 
that  the  thrush's  song  is  sweet,  and  the  lark's  exulting ; 

16 


362  BELINDA. 


but  not  till  now — so  unobservant  are  we — has  she  learned 
surely  the  songs  of  the  lesser  minnesingers — the  minor 
stars  of  the  great  concert.  But  this  summer,  by  right 
perhaps  of  her  harmlessness  and  her  solitude,  she  has 
stolen  into  their  intimacy.  She  recognizes  them  lovingly, 
not  only  when  they  sing,  but  when  they  converse  among 
themselves.  She  knows  the  tomtit's  table-talk — like  the 
grating  of  a  tiny  saw ;  the  cock  chaffinch's — all :  she 
grows  discriminatingly  cunning  in  all  their  little  speech. 

The  dogs  enjoy  themselves  too  in  their  way,  though 
they  think  that  the  flowers  smell  ill ;  and  that  the  birds' 
noise  is  ugly  and  foolish,  not  to  be  named  in  the  same 
breath  with  the  poignant  love-songs  of  the  nightly  cats. 
Slutty,  indeed,  has  suffered  one  of  those  disappointments, 
from  which  not  dogs  any  more  than  men  are  exempt. 
For  four-and-twenty  hours  Punch  has  been  lost ;  and 
from  the  more  than  resignation,  evidenced  by  her  during 
his  absence,  and  the  acute  depression  coincident  with  his 
restoration,  it  is  but  too  clear  that  she  had  hoped  his  dis- 
appearance was  a  permanent  one. 

June  nears  her  perfumed  close.  The  second  Sunday 
of  Mrs.  Forth's  loneliness  has  come  round.  The  first  was 
marked  by  no  special  incident.  Belinda  had  not  expected 
that  it  would  be.  But  indeed,  not  even  to  herself  does 
she  allow  that  she  anticipates  anything  for  any  Sunday. 
But  yet,  on  this  second  Sunday  she  rises  with  such  a  feel- 
ing of  irrepressible  blithe  excitement,  that  she  must  needs 
casuistically  explain  it  to  herself.  The  air  is  so  good. 
The  smell  of  the  hay  comes  now  into  the  middle  of  the 
town  ;  into  street  and  market-place  ;  how  much  more 
hither,  where  she  is  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  sort  of  sub- 
urban pseudo-country  !  She  has  ever  been  fond  of  Sun- 
day. It  is  always  a  favorite  day  with  her ;  much  more 
so  in  this  Sunday  city  of  innumerable  church-bells. 

She  dresses  with  a  resolute  abstaining  from  adding  a 


BELINDA.  363 


single  adornment,  or  making  any  change,  however  slight, 
in  her  usual  Sunday  toilet.  To  do  so  would  be  to  allow 
that  she  had  some  reason  for  the  alteration.  Perhaps, 
with  this  motive  mingles  an  unconfessed  superstition  that 
to  presuppose  a  pleasure  by  preparation  for  it,  is  the 
surest  way  to  rob  yourself  of  its  fruition. 

She  reads  the  Lessons  for  the  day  to  her  mother-in- 
law,  with  as  reverent  a  distinctness  as  if  the  poor  old 
lady  could  follow  them,  or  were  even  aware  of  the  nature 
of  the  attention.  It  is  a  proceeding  of  whose  judicious- 
ness she  herself  has  no  great  opinion  ;  but  it  is  one  of  the 
tasks  imposed  upon  her  by  her  husband,  and  which  she 
would  by  no  means  intermit.  When  they  are  ended, 
having  told  her  the  news  of  her  husband's  death,  which 
she  receives  with  her  usual  pleased  surprise,  Belinda  goes 
lightly  away  to  put  on  her  bonnet  for  church. 

As  she  walks  along,  her  memory  grows  suddenly  occu- 
pied with  the  recollection  of  that  other  solitary  walk  to 
church  at  Folkestone  ;  of  the  griding  cold  ;  the  ice-bound 
earth  ;  the  misery  of  her  yet  more  ice-bound  heart ;  of 
the  wretched  prisoned  starling  to  which  she  had  likened 
herself.  Not  greater  is  earth's  change  than  that  which 
is  wrought  within  herself.  But  for  her  change,  what 
reason  is  there  ?  Has  the  starling,  then,  escaped  ?  The 
question  flashes  upon  her  with  an  uneasy  start,  but  is 
instantly  silenced  again. 

The  service  is  one  of  those  brief  and  modernized  ones, 
that  make  us  marvel  at  the  patience  of  our  earlier  days  ; 
yet  to  Belinda  it  seems  long.  Whether  sweetly  singing, 
devoutly  kneeling,  or  attentively  listening,  she  has  no 
peace  from  the  buzzing  thought — never  allowed,  never 
looked  in  the  face  —  but  always  returning,  gnat-like: 
"  When  will  it  be  ?  Where  will  it  be  ?  How  long  will 
it  last  ? "  It  does  not  leave  her  at  the  church-door,  but 
buzzes  and  teases  all  along  the  sunshiny  road.  It  will 


364  BELINDA. 


buzz  and  tease  until  it  gets  its  answer.  Well,  let  it ! 
For  is  not  that  answer  now  given  ? 

At  the  turn  of  the  road,  close  at  home,  free  from  the 
stream  of  church-goers,  which  has  flowed  in  other  direc- 
tions, with  no  more  witness  than  a  milkman  swinging  un- 
concernedly along  beneath  his  yoke,  there  it  will  be — 
there  it  is  !  Has  not  every  moment  since  their  parting 
been  but  a  leading  up  to  and  preparation  for  this  moment  ? 
And  yet,  at  the  sight  of  him  she  starts,  as  if  it  were  a 
surprise,  which  indeed  she  still  feigns  to  herself  that  it  is. 

"  You  here  ? "  she  says  in  a  voice  of  airy  astonish- 
ment, that  would  be  admirably  natural  did  it  not  quiver, 
and  were  it  not  a  little  overdone.  "Have  you  fallen 
from  the  clouds  ?  " 

His  answer  is  not  over-ready.  He  has  not  yet  got 
over  the  stupefaction  that  the  first  sight  of  her,  after  an 
interval,  always  brings  upon  him — a  stupefaction,  such 
as,  they  say,  the  sight  of  the  sea,  of  Niagara,  of  any 
overwhelmingly  great  and  noble  natural  object  produces 
in  him  who  looks  upon  it  for  the  first  time.  How  much 
more  beautiful  she  is  than  he  had  remembered  her  !  how 
pious  she  looks  !  how  chaste  !  Probably  other  women 
before  now  have  carried  large  Prayer-books,  and  "  An- 
cient and  Modern  Hymn-books  "  in  their  left  hand,  home 
from  church  ;  but  it  seems  to  him  to  be  a  wondrous  feat 
of  grace  and  holiness,  performed  for  the  first  and  only 
time  in  the  world's  history.  At  last : 

"Are  you  surprised?"  he  asks,  still  feeling  rather 
dizzy  ;  "  if  you  remember — " 

"I  am  afraid  that  you  will  find  all  your  friends  gone 
down,"  she  interrupts  precipitately. 

"  Shall  I  ? "  he  answers,  with  an  indifference  that  he 
makes  no  attempt  to  conceal ;  "probably,  no  doubt." 

Is  it  her  large  Prayer-book  that  is  making  her  so  un- 
approachable ? 


BELINDA.  365 


"  Have  you  come  from  Yorkshire  ?  "  she  asks  quickly, 
not  allowing  a  moment  of  silence  to  intervene,  with  the 
uneasy  idea,  probably,  of  keeping  the  conversation  in  the 
polite  and  distant  society  key  in  which  she  has  elected 
to  pitch  it. 

"  Yes." 

"  Did  not  you  find  it  very  dusty  traveling  ?  "  walking 
fast,  and  looking  straight  before  her. 

"  I  came  by  a  night-train." 

"Do  you  like  night-traveling?  I  do  not ;  but  then  I 
can't  sleep.  Perhaps  you  can  sleep  ?  " 

"  I  did  not  sleep  !  " 

There  is  a  tinge  of  reproach  in  the  manner  in  which 
he  pronounces  the  last  words.  What  has  happened  to  her  ? 
Is  it  to  hear  these  cold  platitudes  that  he  has  been  rush- 
ing toward  her  all  through  the  night,  chiding  the  iron 
wheels  for  being  slow — that  he  has  spent  his  holiday,  and 
foregone  his  rest  ?  Sleep  !  With  this  to-day — this  now 
ahead  of  him  !  Is  it  likely  that  he  should  sleep  ? 

They  have  reached  her  gate,  and  there  paused.  She 
does  not  ask  him  to  accompany  her  in,  nor  does  she  make 
him  any  hospitable  offer  whatever.  But  that  he  has 
neither  expected  nor  wished — would  have  declined  on  the 
unlikely  hypothesis  of  he*r  offering  it.  He  has  no  desire 
to  taste  of  Professor  Forth's  salt.  There  is  something 
that  tells  him  that  her  pause  before  dismissing  him  will 
be  only  a  momentary  one  ;  and  that  if  he  does  not  util- 
ize this  very  present  instant,  she  will  be  gone,  and  he 
may  return  to  Milnthorpe,  whence  he  came,  at  his  lei- 
sure. 

"  You  will  enjoy  the  country  air  after  your  Milnthorpe 
smoke?"  she  says,  her  hand  upon  the  latch,  and  with 
what  she  knows  to  be  a  valedictory  smile. 

"  What  do  you  do  on  Sunday  afternoons  ?  "  he  asks 
precipitately  ;  "  do  you  do  anything  ?  " 


366  BELINDA. 


"  Do  anything  !  "  she  repeats,  demurring  ;  "  what  do 
you  mean  ?  " 

"  Do  you  go  to  church  again  ?  "  very  hurriedly,  and 
doubling  up  his  hands  in  his  pockets  to  hinder  their 
yielding  to  their  almost  ungovernable  impulse  to  stretch 
themselves  out,  and — with  her  will,  or  against  her  will — 
there  detain  her. 

She  casts  a  furtive  glance  toward  the  house — a  glance 
that  makes  in  him  the  fear  of  her  flight,  and  the  impulse 
to  check  it,  yet  more  nearly  beyond  his  governance. 

"  No — o,"  she  says  slowly  ;  "  not  often." 

"  What  do  you  do  then  ?     Do  you  ever  take  a  walk  ?  " 

He  has  his  eye  upon  her.  Would  it  be  quite  inad- 
missible, if  she  shows  symptoms  of  leaving  him  unan- 
swered, to  lay  one  hand  quite  quietly,  so  that  she  should 
be  scarely  conscious  of  it,  upon  her  arm  ?  There  is  a  full 
minute — sixty  seconds  well  rung — before  she  answers. 

"  Sometimes,  as  it  happens,  if  it  does  not  rain — if  I 
feel  inclined." 

"And — and — have  you  any — any  specially  favorite 
walk?" 

Again  she  looks  toward  the  house,  behind  whose 
closed  doors  the  dogs  are  plainly  heard,  telling  her  that 
they  know  she  has  come  back  from  church,  and  asking 
her  why  she  is  dawdling. 

"  No  ;  none  !  "  she  says,  lifting  the  latch.  "  Of  course," 
her  words  coming  with  a  sort  of  shamefaced  hurry,  "  I 
like  the  College  Gardens — everybody  must  like  the  Col- 
lege Gardens  ;  but,"  with  a  sudden  remorse  at  this  con- 
cession, "  I  very  often  do  not  go  there,  because  of  the 
dogs  ;  one  may  not  take  the  dogs  into  them." 

She  has  opened  the  gate,  and  is  passing  through  it. 
He  has  only  half  a  minute  left. 

"  Which  is  your  favorite  ?  Which  do  you  like  best  ?  " 
he  cries  desperately  after  her. 


BELINDA.  367 


"  I  have  not  any  favorite.  I  do  not  know  ;  I  like  them 
all." 

She  has  taken  out  her  latch-key,  and  is  putting  it  into 
the  lock. 

"  That  means  that  you  are  determined  not  to  tell  me," 
he  says,  with  a  tremor  of  passionate  disappointment  in 
his  voice  ;  and  so,  taking  off  his  hat,  turns  on  his  heel. 
But  as  he  walks  slowly  down  the  road,  telling  his  own 
heart  that  be  has  befooled  himself — never  would  he  allow 
that  his  high  lady  could  befool  him — a  sort  of  whisper 
seems  to  travel  to  his  ears,  "  Some  people  like  St.  Brid- 
get's best ! " 

Belinda  lunches,  as  usual,  alone.  The  one  prime  and 
perhaps  sole  advantage  of  solitary  feeling  is,  that  you 
need  not  eat  more  than  you  feel  inclined  ;  that  if  from 
any  cause  your  appetite  has  left  you,  there  is  no  one  to 
make  comments  on  that  fact.  If,  in  addition,  you  have 
two  pets  gluttons  on  their  hind-legs  supporting  you 
throughout  your  repast  on  either  side,  and  drawing  five 
sharp  nails  along  the  back  of  your  hand  if  you  do  not 
seem  to  be  attending  to  them,  not  even  to  the  servant 
need  your  condition  of  un-hunger  be  ever  revealed. 

Punch  and  Slutty  have  never  yet  understood  why,  on 
that  June  Sunday,  they  were  feasted  so  royally  on  ribs  of 
roast  beef. 

From  the  luncheon-table  Belinda  passes,  according  to 
the  usual  routine  of  her  duties,  to  her  mother-in-law's 
room,  for  her  daily  two  hours.  As  it  turns  out,  they  are 
more  than  two  ;  for  the  nurse,  relying  upon  her  employ- 
er's usually  good-natured  laxity,  out-stays  her  furlough 
by  fully  twenty  minutes,  and  returns  to  find  young  Mrs. 
Forth,  for  the  first  time,  unsmiling  and  impatient  of  the 
delay.  And  yet,  when  released,  she  seems  undecided  as 
to  the  disposition  of  her  time. 


368  BELINDA. 


The  dogs  are  staring  at  her — one  sitting,  one  stand- 
ing— as  if  they  knew  that  their  fate  was  hanging  in  the 
balance.  Can  any  one  resist  such  a  litany  of  goggles  as 
their  eyes  are  uttering  ?  It  would  be  a  crying  shame  to 
disappoint  them.  She  will  forego  the  trim  leisure  of  the 

College  Gardens  and  take  them  to  the  Fields a  public 

promenade  where  dogs  are  admitted,  and  where  peram- 
bulators push  and  Sunday  shop-boys  jostle.  But  she 
does  not  call  them  or  tell  them  so.  After  all,  it  is  a  pity 
to  spoil  them,  and  to  let  them  .take  it  for  granted  that 
they  are  to  accompany  her  wherever  she  goes.  On  the 
whole,  it  is  wiser  not  to  hamper  herself  with  them.  She 
will  make  no  fixed  plan  as  to  the  direction  of  her  walk  ; 
but  will  simply  follow  where  whim  or  chance  may  lead. 
And  whim  and  chance,  after  a  little  preliminary  sham- 
ming, gone  through  to  impose  upon  herself,  lead  her  to 
St.  Bridget's  Gardens. 

An  interlacing  of  elm-arms  overhead  ;  a  thick  bed  of 
periwinkle  below  ;  on  the  left  a  little  classic  river,  and  an 
unexpected  park  with  smoky  deer  ;  on  the  right  the  sa- 
cred college  meadow,  where  never  vulgar  foot  may  fall, 
save  of  the  hay-makers,  who  have  but  lately  built  the 
grass  and  flowers  into  a  scented  stack.  Above,  below, 
around,  tranquillity  and  solitude.  For,  loveliest  of  the 
college  walks  as  is  St.  Bridget's,  it  is,  strange  to  say,  also 
the  least  frequented.  Thither  the  accursed  perambulator 
can  not  come  ;  and  thither  the  holiday  clerk  and  milliner 
come  not.  It  is  all,  or  nearly  all,  her  own.  Each  Sunday, 
as  the  town  empties,  it  will  grow  more  and  more  her  own. 

Over  the  patterned  walk,  where  tree  and  sun  have  laid 
their  checkers  as  a  carpet  for  her  feet,  she  marches 
leisurely.  She  has  not  hurried  upon  any  other  Sunday ; 
therefore  she  will  not  hurry  to-day.  No  one  can  or  shall 
be  able  to  say  that  she  has  departed  one  jot  from  her  ac- 
customed habits. 


BELINDA.  369 


She  is  making  for  her  usual  seat — the  one  that  ordi- 
narily no  one  disputes  with  her.  But  to-day,  as  it  conies 
into  view,  she  perceives  that  it  is  already  occupied.  The 
occupant  must  be  a  friend  too,  since,  on  catching  sight 
of  her,  he  comes  hasting — young  and  most  glad — to  meet 
her.  Ah — h !  it  is  not  a  question  of  the  Grosse  Garten 
over  again.  To-day  she  is  not  first.  Not  that  there  is 
any  parallel  between  the  cases.  Not  that  any  one  can 
call  this  a  rendezvous.  He  does  not  think  it  necessary  to 
offer  any  apology  for,  or  explanation  of,  his  appearance, 
and  passes  over,  with  a  silent  lenity,  her  little  futile  and 
ill-done  expression  of  surprise. 

"  So  we  meet  here  again  !  " 

"  Shall  we  sit  down  ?  "  he  says,  pointing  to  the  bench 
whence  he  has  just  risen. 

For  an  instant  she  hesitates  ;  then — 

"Yes,  I  do  not  mind,"  she  says,  irresolutely.  "I  do 
not  know  why  I  should  not ;  I  sit  here  every  Sunday." 

Is  there  in  this  any  slightest  departure  from  use  or 
custom  ?  He  seats  himself  beside,  yet  not  near  her  ;  for 
he  sees  her  frightened  eye  jealously  measuring  the  inter- 
val between  them  ;  to  be  sure  that  it  is  wide  enough. 
How  still  it  is  !  Neither  human  voice  nor  metal  heard 
from  the  city.  Every  one  must  be  in  church.  Is  this 
really  happening  ?  Perhaps  if  he  speak,  if  he  make  her 
speak,  it  will  grow  more  real. 

"  So  you  are  alone  here  ?  " 

"I  have  the  dogs." 

"But  besides  the  dogs,  no  one?  not  your  sister?" 

"  Did  you  think  that  she  would  be  here  ?  did  you  ex- 
pect to  find  her  here  ?  "  asks  Mrs.  Forth,  quickly,  while  a 
storm  of  color  sweeps  across  her  face. 

He  has  no  slightest  clew  to  the  origin  of  that  red  tem- 
pest ;  he  only  knows  that  it  has  trebled  her  beauty.  Did 
God  ever  before  create  such  a  wonder  of  loveliness  as  she  ? 


370  BELINDA. 


"  I — I  do  not  know,"  he  answers  inattentively,  a  sin 
toward  her  of  which  he  is  seldom  guilty  ;  "  I — I  do  not 
think  I  thought  about  it." 

Wide  of  the  mark,  as  we  usually  are  in  our  judgments 
of  those  who  have  either  too  much  or  too  little  interest 
for  us,  she  attributes  his  verbal  unreadiness  to  a  cause  far 
removed  enough  from  the  real  one. 

"  Sarah  offered  to  stay  with  me,"  she  says  in  an  un- 
genial  voice,  sitting  very  upright,  and  looking  rigidly,  be- 
fore her  ;  "but  I  could  not  be  so  selfish  as  to  accept  such  a 
sacrifice  from  her.  I  could  not  condemn  any  one  to  a  life 
of  such  unredeemed  dullness  as  mine  now  is." 

There  is  an  acrimony  in  her  tone  that  he  knows  not 
how  to  account  for  ;  but  he  does  not  interrupt  her.  As 
long  as  she  will  speak,  he  is  ever  most  gladly  silent.  Why 
should  the  air  be  disturbed  by  his  coarse  and  common 
voice,  when  it  may  be  enriched  by  the  music  of  hers  ? 

"It  is  by  no  fault  of  my  own  that  I  am  left  alone 
here,"  continues  she,  with  some  sharpness  ;  "I  wished  to 
go  to  Switzerland  with  Mr.  Forth.  I  asked  him  to  take  me." 

"  And  he  refused  ?  "  with  an  accent  of  the  prof  ound- 
est  incredulity. 

To  be  asked  by  this  woman  for  leave  to  bestow  her 
company  upon  you,  and  to  refuse  her  !  And  how  did  she 
ask  ?  With  her  arms  about  his  neck  ?  With  tears  and 
kisses  ?  He  writhes. 

"It  was  not  convenient,"  she  answers  formally;  "he 
was  unable  to  make  it  fit  in  with  his  plans." 

The  young  man's  heart  burns  within  him  with  a  fire 
of  envious  indignation  too  hot  to  find  vent  in  words. 
And  yet  perhaps  a  little  of  it  may  pierce  through  his  next 
speech. 

"  He  could  not  make  it  convenient  to  take  you  ;  and 
he  could  not  make  it  convenient  to  stay  with  you  5  and  so 
here  you  are,  alone  and  dull." 


BELINDA.  371 


There  is  something  in  his  tone — an  irony  that  has  the 
heat  of  wrath — that  rouses  again  her  half  -  smoldering 
alarms. 

"  I  am  alone,"  she  answers,  quickly,  l(  but  I  am  not 
dull ;  I  never  was  less  dull  in  my  life ;  the  days  are  not 
half  long  enough  for  me." 

"  And  yet  you  said — "  objects  he,  bewildered  by  the 
staring  discrepancy  of  the  statements  which  have  followed 
so  close  upon  each  other's  heels. 

"  What  does  it  matter  what  I  said  ?  "  interrupts  she 
with  a  brusque,  nervous  laugh.  "  If  I  may  not  contradict 
myself,  whom  may  I  ?  " 

An  elderly  couple — two  of  St.  Bridget's  rare  votaries — 
have  appeared  upon  the  long  straight  alley  dominated  by 
their  bench  ;  an  alley  named  after  the  short-faced  humorist 
who  loved  to  pace  it.  Belinda  is  glad.  She  wishes  that 
more  couples  would  come  into  sight.  It  is  far  more  sociable. 

As  they  pass,  she  involuntarily  raises  her  voice  in 
speaking.  She  is  saying  nothing  that  she  minds  either 
them  or  any  one  else  hearing.  What  a  comfort  it  is  to 
have  nothing  to  conceal  from  the  whole  world  ! 

As  the  hours  slip  by,  this  happy  and  confident  com- 
placency deepens.  But  how  fast  they  slip  away !  She 
can  not  affect  to  be  ignorant  of  their  passage,  since  from 
the  Cardinal's  high  tower,  rising  above  the  trees,  the 
deep-mouthed  bells  tell  the  death  of  each  little  quarter. 
How  closely  they  tread  upon  each  other's  heels  !  How 
many  of  them  have  broken  the  Sabbath  stillness  of  the 
mead?  She  ventures  not  to  ask  nor  think.  But  why 
does  she  not  venture  ?  It  is  the  same  as  upon  other  Sun- 
days, for  she  always  stays  late.  It  is  with  a  start  that  at 
length — seven  solemn  strokes  having  beaten  the  air — she 
rises  to  be  gone. 

"  It  is  seven  o'clock  !  "  she  says  hurriedly.  "  We  must 
go,  or  we  shall  be  shut  in." 


372  BELINDA. 


Shut  in,  in  this  green  inclosure,  with  the  stars  for 
night-lamps,  and  this  woman  for  fellow-prisoner  !  How 
dare  she  make  such  a  suggestion  !  It  is  several  minutes 
before  he  can  fight  down  the  frantic  tumult  in  his  heart 
that  her  words  have  raised,  enough  to  say  with  sufficient 
composure  : 

"  If  you  come  here  every  Sunday,  I  suppose  that  you 
will  be  here  next  Sunday." 

"  But  you  will  not ! "  she  cries  vehemently,  stop- 
ping— they  are  walking  slowly  homeward — and  facing 
him. 

'*  You  forbid  me  ? "  he  says,  in  a  low  voice.  He 
can  not  rid  himself  of  that  vision  of  the  star-canopied 
meadow. 

"  I  forbid  you  !  "  she  answers  excitedly  ;  "  yes — yes — 
yes  !  at  least,"  recollecting  herself,  "  of  course,  you  are 
your  own  master  ;  I  have  no  authority  over  you  ;  but  if 
I  might  be  allowed  to  advise,  I  should  say,"  laughing 
agitatedly,  "  that  it  would  be  a  most  unnecessary  expense 
— like  my  journey  to  Switzerland.  It  is  ill  manners  to  re- 
mind you — but  you  know  you  are  poor,  until  the  patent 
is  taken  out,"  smiling  feverishly.  "  I  must  not  allow  you 
to  make  ducks  and  drakes  of  your  money." 

"  The  Sunday  after  ?  " 

Her  answer  is  long  a-coming  ;  for,  indeed,  it  is  pre- 
ceded by  an  eager  dialogue  within  herself,  that  takes 
time. 

If  she  prohibit  it,  so  docile  is  he  to  her  least  word  or 
sign,  that  she  knows  he  will  acquiesce  ;  and  she  will  sit 
upon  her  bench  and  hear  the  quarters  chime,  and  see  the 
tall  tower  rise,  alone.  Even  when  her  reply  does  come, 
it  is  a  mere  evasion. 

There  is  no  need  to  give  a  direct  answer.  It  is  one 
of  those  questions  which  it  is  better  taste  to  leave  unan- 
swered. 


BELINDA.  373 


"  The  Sunday  after  next  ? "  she  says,  with  a  flighty 
laugh.  "  We  may  all  be  dead  by  then  ;  it  is  too  far  off 
for  me  to  trouble  my  head  about  it.' 


CHAPTER  XI. 

"  Till  Eulenspiegel  war  vergniigt  wenn  er  Berg  aufstieg,  weil  er  sich 
darauf  freute,  wenn  es  wieder  Berg  abgehen  wiirde,  und  traurig  wenn 

es  Berg  abging,  weil   er  das  Auf steigen  furchtete Was  wird  mir 

Schlimmes  begegnen  da  ich  heute  im  Gemiith  so  heiter  bin :  welche 
Freude  steht  mir  bevor  da  mich  Traurigkeit  so  niederdriickt  ?  " 

CAN  it  be  possible  that  August  is  here  ?  Not  even 
early  August — July's  hot  equivalent — but  late  August, 
that  has  shaken  hands  with  September.  The  mornings 
have  a  taste  of  autumn,  though  high  summer  still  rules 
the  noons  ;  and,  as  Belinda  paces  along  her  garden-walk, 
the  damp  dews  wet  her  gown,  and  the  swinging  gossa- 
mers tickle  her  nose. 

Oxbridge  is  at  its  emptiest.  In  a  week  or  so  people 
will  be  beginning  to  return  ;  but  for  the  present  it  is  a 
desert.  It  is  a  pity  that  they  should  not  return  to  see 
with  what  a  kingly  red  pomp  the  Virginian  creeper  is 
decking  the  sad-colored  beauty  of  their  town.  Over 
their  worn-gray  shoulders  the  colleges  are  throwing  a 
cope  of  shaded  crimson  ;  and  from  underneath  a  neck- 
lace of  rubies,  the  Renaissance  porch  of  the  great  Uni- 
versity church  looks  out. 

And  alone,  among  the  waxing  autumnal  splendor, 
Mrs.  Forth  pursues  her  way.  Still  she  walks  to  the  rural 
villages  ;  still  she  gardens  ;  still  she  makes  out  her  cata- 
logue, and  reads  aloud  her  collects  ;  and  still  on  Sunday 
she  sits  upon  her  bench  in  St.  Bridget's  walk,  every  alter- 
nate Sunday  alone,  every  alternate  Sunday  not  alone. 


374  BELINDA. 


Although  no  further  permission  than  that  recorded  has 
been  either  asked  or  given,  she  has  grown  to  take  it  as  an 
accepted  fact,  that,  on  every  second  Sunday,  she  shall 
find  him  there  as  surely  as  she  finds  the  green  elm-trees 
and  the  Cardinal's  Tower.  Doubtless,  the  "greenth  and 
blueth,"  as  Horace  Walpole  called  them,  the  repose  and 
country  fresh  air,  are  an  almost  necessary  tonic  to  him 
after  the  din  and  labor  of  his  week.  If  he  think  them 
worth  the  money  spent  in  railway-traveling  upon  them, 
surely  that  is  his  affair,  and  one  in  which,  without  offi- 
cious ill-taste,  she  can  not  further  meddle.  There  is  no 
slightest  mystery  about  their  meetings.  Any  one  may 
know  of  them.  Nor  does  she  ever  fail,  in  her  letters  to 
the  Professor,  to  record,  among  miscellaneous  items  of 
news,  that  she  has  met  Mr.  Rivers.  Why,  then,  should  she 
abstain  from  a  pleasure  so  innocent  ?  We  are  creatures  of 
habit ;  and  she  could  not  do  well  without  her  Sundays  now. 

At  the  mere  suggestion  of  such  an  abstinence  she 
shivers  coldly.  She  has  pitched  their  intercourse  in  a 
key  with  which  no  one  can  quarrel ;  has  set  their  inti- 
macy upon  a  footing  from  which  it  need  never  swerve. 
If  it  were  any  one's  place  to  object,  it  would  surely  be 
her  husband's  ;  but  so  far  is  he  from  so  doing,  that  he 
has  not  thought  her  communication  worth  even  a  com- 
ment. He  has  devoted  a  couple  of  closely- written  pages 
to  directions  where  she  is  to  find  a  volume  of  Origen  ; 
but  apparently  he  could  not  spare  speech  or  time  for  a 
mention  of  Rivers. 

If  anything  could  have  lulled  her  into  a  greater  secu- 
rity than  that  which  she  already  enjoys,  it  would  be  this 
fact.  Serene  and  blooming,  with  a  silent  conscience,  she 
walks  entranced  through  the  dreamful  days.  By  a  sort 
of  subtilty,  such  as  Till  EulenspiegePs,  she  has  grown  to 
look  forward  to  the  Sundays  on  which  he  does  not  come, 
because  they  lead  up  to  those  on  which  he  does. 


BELINDA.  375 


To-day  is  one  of  these  latter  Sundays,  and  she  is  sit- 
ting down  to  her  solitary  luncheon,  too  happy  to  eat, 
when  a  ring  at  the  front-door  makes  her  start.  Can  it  be 
Rivers  ?  Unlikely  that  he,  who  has  long  tacitly  abstained 
from  even  meeting  her  on  her  way  home  from  church, 
should  present  himself  at  a  door  which  he  has  always 
shown  such  a  silent  energy  of  repulsion  against  entering. 
Can  it  be  her  husband,  unexpectedly  restored  to  her  ? 
She  turns  suddenly  very  cold.  Can  it  be — 

There  is  no  use  in  repeating  the  question  which  is 
already  answered. 

"  Just  in  time  !  "  cries  Miss  Watson,  thrusting  aside 
the  baffled  parlor-maid,  and  seeming  instantly  to  fill  the 
whole  room  with  her  presence,  and  her  plaid  gown  and 
her  fringe.  "  What  a  good  smell  of  roast  beef  !  I  am 
as  hungry  as  a  hunter." 

Belinda  has  risen,  leaving  her  untouched  plate ;  the 
consternation  which  the  sight  of  Miss  Watson  does  and 
must  always  inspire,  in  this  case  diluted  and  modified  by 
relief.  At  all  events,  she  is  not  the  Professor. 

"  I  can  spend  a  good  four  or  five  hours  with  you  ! " 
cries  the  guest,  with  loud  cheerfulness  ;  beginning  to 
divest  herself  of  bonnet,  gloves,  and  pelerine.  "I  am 
on  my  way  to  Wrenbury,  to  the  Sampsons.  They  do  not 
expect  me  ;  I  am  going  to  take  them  by  surprise.  They 
have  always  bragged  so  much  about  their  place  down  in 
Blankshire,  that  I  was  determined  to  find  out  how  much 
truth  there  was  in  it  ;  and  the  Sunday  trains  are  so  awk- 
ward that  I  can  not  get  on  till  late  in  the  afternoon. 
However,  it  is  an  ill  wind  that  blows  nobody  good.  I 
can  spend  pretty  nearly  four  hours  with  you." 

Through  Belinda's  head  there  darts  immediately  a 
calculation.  It  is  now  one  o'clock.  In  four  hours  it  will 
be  five  o'clock  :  an  hour  later,  therefore,  than  that  one 
which  usually  finds  her  pacing  down  St.  Bridget's  walk. 


376  BELINDA. 


He  will  have  to  wait  a  full  hour  for  her.  At  this  thought 
a  dismay,  so  disproportionate  to  the  occasion  as  to  frighten 
even  herself,  takes  hold  of  her. 

"  Is  not  it  rather  a  wild-goose  chase  ? "  she  asks, 
forcing  herself  to  spe'ak.  "  How  do  you  know  that  you 
will  find  the  Sampsons  ?  Are  you  sure  that  they  are  at 
home  ?  " 

"  Pooh  !  "  replies  Miss  Watson  carelessly  ;  "  if  they 
are  not,  the  housekeeper  will  give  me  a  shake-down.  One 
gets  to  know  the  ins  and  outs  of  a  place  better  when  the 
owners  are  away." 

Belinda's  only  answer  is  a  faint  shrug  of  acute  dissent. 

"  I  never  ate  a  better  piece  of  beef  in  my  life  !  "  pur- 
sues Miss  Watson,  warmly.  "  Goes  to  the  servants,  I  sup- 
pose, eh  ?  Else  I  can  not  imagine  how  you  would  ever 
get  through  such  a  large  joint  all  alone  !  Why  are  you 
alone  ?  No  screw  loose,  I  hope,  eh  ?  It  seems  a  little 
odd,  your  being  here  all  alone,  when  the  town  is  such  a 
desert.  By-the-by,  what  is  Rivers  doing  up  here  ?  " 

If  her  life  here,  and  her  salvation  elsewhere,  de- 
pended upon  her  remaining  motionless,  Belinda  could  not 
help  the  start  which  she  can  only  hope  looks  slighter  than 
it  feels. 

66  Mr.  Rivers  !  "  she  repeats,  stammeringly. 

"  Yes,  Mr.  Rivers,  if  you  like  to  call  him  so  !  "  with 
her  strident  laugh.  "  David  Rivers  ;  our  old  friend, 
David  Rivers  !  Did  not  you  know  that  he  was  here  ? 
Has  not  he  been  to  see  you  ?  " 

Belinda  draws  a  long,  gasping  breath,  then  answers 
distinctly  : 

"  No  ! " 

After  all  it  is  not  a  lie  —  not  all  a  lie  !  He  has  not 
been  to  see  her  ;  and  she  has  made  a  mental  reservation 
as  to  her  answer  applying  only  to  the  second  clause  of 
her  companion's  speech. 


BELINDA.  377 


"  H'm  !  "  says  Miss  Watson,  biting  her  nails  ;  "  that 
in  itself  looks  odd." 

Since  this  last  remark  is  not  a  question,  and  since  she 
is  by  no  means  assured  of  having  even  a  tolerable  mastery 
over  her  voice,  Mrs.  Forth  allows  it  to  go  by  uncom- 
mented  upon. 

"  What  can  he  be  doing  up  here  ? "  continues  the 
other,  still  biting  her  nails,  and  in  a  tone  of  the  most 
poignant  inquisitiveness.  "  The  very  deadest  time  of  the 
long  vacation  ;  not  a  soul  to  be  seen  about  !  Why,  you 
might  drive  a  coach-and-four  along  the  sidewalk  from 
St.  Ursula's  to  King's.  I  shall  never  rest  till  I  have  got 
to  the  bottom  of  it." 

Her  guest's  eyes  are  riveted  upon  Mrs.  Forth  with 
such  an  unwinking  energy  of  stare,  that  she  must  needs 
form  some  halting  answer. 

"  Will  not  you  ?  "  she  says,  with  a  sickly  smile  ;  "  you 
had  better  ask  him  !  " 

"  I  only  wish  he  would  give  me  the  chance,"  replies 
the  other,  stoutly  ;  "  but  he  knows  a  great  deal  too  well 
for  that.  I  came  face  to  face  with  him  in  Church  Street, 
and,  before  I  could  get  my  breath,  he  had  slipped  away 
like  an  eel.  If  you  remember,  we  used  to  think  him  a 
little  deaf  at  Dresden,  but  I  never  heard  that  he  was 
blind,  too  !  There  is  always  something  louche  in  a  man 
obviously  avoiding  the  respectable  women  of  his  acquaint- 
ance, is  not  there  ?  " 

She  repeats  the  question  with  such  a  pertinacity  of 
inquiry,  that  Belinda  is  obliged  to  murmur  that,  "  yes, 
there  is." 

When  the  beef  has  gone  to  fulfill  that  destiny 
which  Miss  Watson  had  prophesied  for  it — she,  at  least, 
has  done  full  justice  to  it — they  move  to  the  drawing- 
room. 

"I  am  afraid  that  I  must  ask  you  to  excuse  me," 


378  BELINDA. 


says  Belinda,  with  formality;  "  I  always  devote  the  next 
two  hours  to  my  mother-in-law." 

"  Pooh  !  do  not  mention  it,"  replies  the  other  cordial- 
ly ;  "  it  would  be  very  odd  if  such  an  old  soldier  as  I  did 
not  know  how  to  make  herself  comfortable.  Do  not 
trouble  to  entertain  me.  Books  ?  magazines  ?  eh  ?  "  turn- 
ing over  the  objects  on  the  table  ;  "  there  is  no  fear  but 
that  I  shall  find  something  to  amuse  myself  with  ! " 

Nor  is  there.  At  intervals  during  the  two  hours  Be- 
linda catches  sight  of  her  from  the  window,  bustling 
round  the  garden,  pinching  the  few  plums  on  the  garden- 
wall,  trying  to  look  into  the  windows  of  the  next  houses  ; 
hears  her  opening  and  shutting  doors,  pulling  out  draw- 
ers, etc. 

For  a  moment  a  pang  of  apprehension  crosses  Mrs. 
Forth's  mind.  Can  she  ferret  out  anything  ?  any  letter  ? 
any  paper  ?  But  no  ;  a  smile  of  pride  and  reassurance 
crosses  Belinda's  face.  What  in  all  her  poor  archives  is 
there  that  might  not  be  exposed  to  the  eyes  of  the  whole 
world  ?  to  the  gimlet-eyes  of  (if  imagination  could  grasp 
the  idea  of  such  a  hideous  multiplication)  a  hundred  Miss 
Watsons  ? 

The  two  hours  are  gone.  It  is  a  quarter  to  four  ;  the 
time  at  which  she  usually  begins  to  put  on  hat  and  gloves 
and  saunter,  deliberately  blissful,  toward  St.  Bridget's. 
It  is  clear  that  it  is  not  the  hour  at  which  she  will  begin 
to  saunter  thither  to-day.  Nothing  looks  less  like  depart- 
ure, more  like  a  prolonged  stay,  than  Miss  Watson's  bonnte- 
less  attitude,  plunged  recumbent  in  the  Professor's  chair. 

"  I  have  been  having  a  look  round,"  she  says  cheerful- 
ly ;  "I  like  to  get  the  bearings  of  a  house.  There  was 
one  door  locked  ;  the  Professor's  sanctum,  eh  ?  " 

"  He  likes  me  to  keep  it  locked  in  his  absence,"  replies 
the  Professor's  wife,  icily,  "  as  he  does  not  wish  his  books 
and  papers  to  be  disturbed." 


BELINDA.  379 


"  You  shall  show  it  me  by-and-by,"  returns  Miss 
Watson  comfortably  ;  "  after  all,  there  is  no  hurry.  I 
have  half  a  mind  to  stay  till  the  late  train,  and  have  a 
bit  of  dinner  with  you  ;  nothing  extra  ;  a  cutlet,  a  grill 
— whatever  you  have  ordered  for  yourself." 

"  It  is  a  very  slow  train,"  says  Belinda,  precipitately. 

"  I  wonder  what  train  Rivers  came  down  by,"  con- 
tinues the  other  thoughtfully  ;  "  of  course  he  has  only 
run  down  for  the  day.  I  have  been  thinking  it  over,  and 
the  more  I  look  at  it  the  more  louche  it  looks  ! " 

Belinda  has  not  sat  down  ;  in  the  forlorn  hope,  per- 
haps, that  the  maintenance  of  a  standing  attitude  may 
give  a  less  established  tone  to  her  guest's  presence.  She 
now  hastens  to  the  window,  and  begins  to  fidget  with  the 
blind-cord,  which  pulls  up  and  down  perfectly,  and  needs 
no  rearrangement. 

"  It  is  an  odd  place  to  choose  for  an  intrigue,  too," 
continues  the  other  reflectively.  "I  have  always  been 
told  that  the  men  are  so  strictly  looked  after  ;  but  per- 
haps it  was  its  very  unlikelihood  that  made  him  pitch 
upon  it,  eh  ?  " 

Possibly  Belinda  makes  some  answer,  and  that  it  is 
drowned  in  the  rattling  of  the  blind,  which  she  is  fever- 
ishly jerking  up  and  down.  Every  drop  of  blood  in  her 
body  seems  to  have  given  its  fellow  rendezvous  in  her 
face.  An  intrigue  I  Does  he  indeed  come  to  Oxbridge 
for  an  intrigue  ?  An  intrigue  with  whom  ?  An  intrigue  ! 
Is  that  what  other  people  besides  Miss  Watson  would  call 
it? 

"  I  shall  certainly  mention  it  to  his  mother,  Lady  Ma- 
rion, when  next  I  meet  her,"  says  Miss  Watson  resolute- 
ly ;  "I  do  not  think  that  it  would  be  acting  a  friend's 
part  not  to  do  so.  I  do  not  actually  know  her,  but  there 
is  a  sort  of  connection  between  us  ;  I  was  at  school  for 
six  months  once  at  Brussels  with  a  cousin  of  hers,  and 


380  BELINDA. 


there  is  no  doubt  that  there  is  something  uncommonly 
louche  about  it." 

Judging  by  the  frequency  with  which  during  the  next 
hour  she  repeats  this  phrase,  it  must  be  a  favorite  one  of 
hers.  By  five  o'clock  its  recurrence  has  driven  Belinda 
to  the  verge  of  desperation.  It  seems  to  her  (though  that 
is  a  figment  of  her  guilty  fancy)  that  there  is  a  dreadful 
meaning  and  significance  in  the  unblinking  look  at  her 
with  which  each  repetition  of  the  word  is  accompanied. 

Five  o'clock  !  He  has  been  waiting  for  a  whole  hour 
beneath  St.  Bridget's  elms,  straining  his  eyes  up  the  long 
straight  walk.  At  length  : 

"  I  think,"  she  says,  looking  overtly  at  the  clock — at 
which  she  has  long  been  stealing  covert  glances  of  ago- 
nized impatience — "  that  if  you  wish  to  catch  this  train — 
and  you  would  find  the  later  one  extremely  tedious — you 
should  be  setting  off  !  " 

"  Should  I  ?  "  replies  the  guest  indifferently.  "  It  is 
of  no  consequence  if  I  am  late  ;  I  am  a  good  walker,  and 
I  enjoy  running  it  fine  ;  I  see  no  use  in  kicking  one's 
heels  at  a  station  !  " 

She  ties  on  her  bonnet,  and  adjusts  her  strong  gray 
fringe  with  a  maddening  deliberation  ;  stops  in  the  middle 
to  examine  and  inquire  the  history  of  a  piece  of  bric-a- 
brac,  which  she  had  not  before  noticed  ;  and  finally  (it  is 
said  that  no  Englishwoman  ever  knows  how  to  take 
leave)  expends  herself  in  an  immense  farewell  speech, 
from  which  the  word  louche  is  by  no  means  absent.  But 
she  is  gone  at  last.  Before  she  is  well  round  the  corner — 
before  there  is  any  real  security  of  her  not  returning,  ac- 
cording to  her  usual  custom,  to  pounce  afresh  upon  her 
just-freed  prey,  Belinda  has  fled  to  her  room  ;  and — her 
trembling  preparations  hurriedly  made — is  speeding  like 
an  arrow  shot  from  a  bow,  to  St.  Bridget's.  There  is  no 
leisureliness  about  her  walk  to-day  ;  no  feigned  indiffer- 


BELINDA.  381 


ence,  no  loitering,  no  counterfeit  indecision  as  to  her  goal. 
To-day  she  can  not  afford  to  play  her  little  comedy. 

Is  not  she  an  hour  and  a  quarter  late  ?  Will  she  find 
him  gone  ?  Will  he  still  be  there  ?  Will  his  patience 
have  held  out  ?  In  the  whole  of  life,  in  the  whole  scheme 
of  nature,  there  seems  to  her  no  other  question  in  the  least 
worth  answering. 

People  look  at  her  oddly,  she  thinks,  as  she  passes. 
Hitherto  she  has  not  minded  how  many  people  she  met, 
or  who  knew  whither,  and  to  what  end,  her  steps  were 
tending.  To-day  it  seems  as  if  they  all  glance  meaningly 
at  her,  as  who  should  read  her  guilty  secret  in  her  face. 
Until  to-day  she  has  never  thought  it  either  a  secret,  or 
guilty.  An  intrigue  !  That  is  what  they  call  it !  She  is 
engaged  in  an  intrigue  ;  and  by  some  means  they  know  it. 

As  she  enters  St.  Bridget's  a  couple  of  humble  lovers 
meet  her  face  to  face.  As  they  pass  her  they  happen  to 
expand  into  a  grin,  provoked,  probably,  by  some  ponder- 
ous joke  of  their  own  making ;  but  she  takes  it  to  her- 
self. They  know  that  she  is  a  married  woman  hastening 
to  an  assignation.  The  very  birds  seem  to  chirp,  and 
the  boughs  to  rustle  meaningly.  Well,  let  them  ! 

It  will  be  a  dreadful  memory  to  face  by-and-by ;  but 
for  the  moment  there  is  no  room  for  any  other  question 
but  the  one — "  Will  he  be  there  ?  " 

Before  she  reaches  their  trysting-bench  it  is  answered. 
She  comes  upon  him  so  suddenly,  that  she  has  no  time  to 
tone  down  her  pace  to  a  decent  saunter.  He  has  seen  the 
speed  with  which  she  was  hasting  toward  him — her 
breathlessness,  her  pallor,  the  desperate  anxiety  of  her 
eyes. 

There  is  no  use  in  shamming  to-day.  But,  indeed,  his 
own  condition  leaves  him  no  right  to  criticise  hers.  Per- 
haps he  is  in  even  worse  case  than  she  ;  for  she  can  speak, 
and  he  can  not. 


382  BELINDA. 


"  You  are  not  gone  !  "  she  says  with  a  gasp,  such  as 
one  might  give  whose  reprieve  met  him  at  the  scaffold- 
foot.  "  I  thought  you  would  be  gone  !  " 

For  answer,  he  grips  her  two  hands  in  his  (never  be- 
fore in  all  his  life  has  he  been  master,  and  for  how  few 
poor  minutes,  but  of  one),  and  looks  at  her  with  a  white 
fixity  of  passion  to  whose  relief  no  words  come.  Even 
when  they  are  both  seated  on  their  bench — neither  ever 
quite  knows  how  they  reached  it — it  is  still  she  who 
speaks  ;  nor  when  she  does  so,  is  it  to  ask  him  to  release 
her  hands.  Perhaps  in  her  agitation  she  is  not  aware  that 
they  are  still  in  his  keeping. 

"  It  was  Miss  Watson  !  "  she  says,  with  that  gasping 
staccato  utterance,  as  of  one  who,  after  long  running,  has 
not  yet  recovered  his  wind.  "  She  came — she  staid  four 
hours.  She  had  seen  you  !  " 

He  nods  his  head  in  acquiescence. 

"Yes." 

He  is  plainly  incapable  of  anything  beyond  a  mono- 
syllable. 

"  She  asked  why  you  came  here,"  says  Belinda  ;  the 
words  fluttering  out  on  greatly  quickened  breath,  but 
still  with  more  coherence. 

"Yes?" 

One  would  say  that  he  were  scarcely  attending,  so  dis- 
tant and  dreamful  is  his  voice.  He  is  conscious  of  noth- 
ing but  the  warmth  of  those  wonderful  sweet  hands  ly- 
ing in  his.  If  he  could  realize  Miss  Watson  at  all,  it 
would  probably  be  with  gratitude  ;  for  it  is  she  virtually 
who  has  given  them  to  him. 

"  She  said,"  continues  Belinda,  trembling  exceedingly, 
and  looking  guiltily  down  on  their  locked  hands,  "  that 
you  must  come  here  for  some  intrigue."  She  pauses,  and 
then  adds  in  a  whisper,  "  She  must  not  say  that  again." 

He  is  attending  now.     There  is  a  significance,  both 


BELINDA.  383 


in  her  look  and  in  her  low  words,  that  can  not  escape 
him. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  says  thickly. 

"I  mean,"  she  says,  still  scarcely  above  a  whisper, 
"  that  you  must  not  come  here  again." 

She  looks  away  from  him  as  she  says  it,  unwilling, 
perhaps,  to  see  the  immense  consternation  that  her  fiat 
will  have  brought  into  his  face  ;  but  he  observes  for  so 
long  a  dead  silence,  that  she  grows  uneasy.  Has  her  blow 
killed  him  ?  or  is  it  possible  (this  latter  suggestion  is  a 
scarcely  less  bitter  one  than  the  former)  that  he  already 
acquiesces  ? 

She  is  just  making  up  her  mind  to  steal  a  glance  at  him, 
when  he  speaks,  and  the  tone  of  his  voice  tells  her  that  her 
first  idea  of  his  case  was  nearer  the  mark  than  her  last. 

"  I  am  not  to  come  here  again  ?  " 

"  No,  I  think  not  ;  no  !  " 

"  I  am  not  to  come  to  Oxbridge  again  ?  " 

"No." 

"  I  am  not  to  meet  you  again  ?  " 

"No." 

"  Not  anywhere  ?  " 

She  bows  her  head,  unable  to  speak. 


She  repeats  the  gesture. 

There  is  such  a  rising  strain  of  unbelieving  agony  in 
his  voice,  culminating  in  his  last  words,  that  speech  has 
wholly  forsaken  her. 

"  We  are  to  live  out  the  rest  of  our  lives  without  each 
other?" 

Again  that  acquiescent  motion  of  the  head. 

"  And  you  can  bear  it  ?  —  of  course,"  correcting  him- 
self, with  a  bitter  humility,  "  why  should  not  you  ?  it  is 
not  much  for  you  to  bear.  Well  then,  I  suppose  I  must 
bear  it  too  !  " 


384:  BELINDA. 


He  has  let  go  her  hands,  and  covered  his  face  with  his 
own.  She  is  free  to  depart.  He  has  always  obeyed  her  ; 
and  he  is  obeying  her  now.  What  is  there  to  keep  her  ? 
And  yet  she  does  not  stir.  Her  aching  eyes  stare  va- 
cantly down  the  long  straight  alley.  Sweet  green  walk  ! 
Dear  solemn  tower  !  Kind  chattering  birds  !  Good-by  ! 
for  never,  never  can  she  bear  to  look  upon  any  of  you 
again  ! 

She  stirs  restlessly  in  her  misery  ;  and  in  an  instant 
he  has  dropped  his  shrouding  hands,  and  is  looking  at  her 
with  a  haggard  apprehension  in  his  eyes. 

"  Are  you  going  now  ?  " 

"  Not  at  once — not  this  moment,"  she  answers  faintly  ; 
"  there  is  no  hurry.  I  can  stay  as  long  as  usual,  if  you 
wish." 

If  he  wishes  !    He  laughs  outright  in  his  pain. 

There  is  a  long,  long  silence. 

St.  Bridget's  is  even  emptier  than  its  wont.  Not  one 
visitor  besides  themselves  breaks  its  entire  seclusion. 
Only  the  grave  tower-clock  deals  out  time's  little  parcels. 

She  speaks  first. 

"  I  do  not  want  you  to  be  unhappy,"  she  says,  with  a 
sort  of  sob  of  compassion  for  his  spoiled  youth.  "  I  should 
like  you  to  be  happy." 

"  So  should  I.     Will  you  show  me  how  ?  " 

"  Oh,  if  I  could  !  "  she  cries,  in  a  heart- wrung  accent. 
"  Oh,  if  we  could  but  be  as  we  were  before — " 

She  stops. 

"  Before  Wesenstein  ?  "  he  says. 

The  word  seems  to  have  roused  him  out  of  his  leth- 
argy of  wretchedness.  Ere  she  knows  it,  he  has  won 
back  her  hands  ;  and  before  the  strangeness  of  his  eyes 
her  own  waver. 

"  We  might  almost  fancy  ourselves  at  Wesenstein, 
might  not  we  ?  "  he  says,  with  a  thrilling  feverish  smile  ; 


BELINDA.  385 


"  it  was  a  green,  quiet,  woody  place  like  this.  Do  you 
remember  it  well  ?  It  is  odd  that  we  have  never  talked 
of  it  since — is  not  it  ?  Why  should  not  we  talk  of  it  now  ? 
You  sat  on  the  grass,  and  I  lay  at  your  feet !  Do  you 
recollect  ?  Yes  "  (with  a  heart-rending  inflection),  "  I  see 
that  you  do.  You  gave  me  your  hand  !  No  !  my  Ice 
Queen,  you  would  never  have  given  it  me  !  I  took  it  and 
kissed  it ;  shall  I  show  you  where  I  kissed  it  ?  Just  there 
— and  there — and  there  !  "  (passionately  fastening  his  lips 
upon  palm  and  fingers)  ;  "  and  then — then  I  took  you  in 
my  arms  !  Can  you  believe  it  ? — and  yet  I  am  speaking 
truth— ^once  I  had  you  in  my  arms,  and  I  let  you  go  I — I 
let  you  go !  Would  to  God  "  (with  a  terrible  burst  of 
agony)  "that  I  had  been  struck  dead  there  before  I  let 
you  go  ! " 

The  storm  of  his  passion  has  carried  her  away. 

"  Would  to  God  you  had  !  "  she  says,  frenziedly  ;  and 
so  unresisting — nay,  passionately  complying,  she  gives 
him  that  two  years  and  a  half  ago  foregone  kiss.  One 
kiss  !  That  is  all.  One  drunk,  oblivious  moment,  and 
then  the  awaking  !  She,  but  now  so  consentingly  em- 
braced, has  wrenched  herself  out  of  his  arms. 

"  What — has — happened — to — us  ?  "  she  says,  stagger- 
ing away  from  him. 

But  he  awakens  slowlier  than  she. 

"  You  have  owed  it  me  since  Wesenstein  !  "  he  cries, 
wildly,  and  with  a  sort  of  triumph. 

And  there  is  silence.  If  indeed  the  loud  blood  din- 
ning in  their  ears  and  hammering  their  temples  can  be 
so  called. 

"  I  suppose,"  she  says,  after  a  while,  speaking  as  if 
speech  were  a  new  weapon,  and  she  ill  at  handling  it, 
"  that — it — has  been — coming  to  this — all  along — only — 
I  did  not — see  it.  I  suppose  that  no  one  would  believe 
me — but  I  did  not  see  it ;  did  you  ?  " 

n 


386  BELINDA. 


He  makes  no  answer. 

He  is  still  lapped  in  the  Elysium  of  that  long-prom- 
ised and  at  last  fulfilled  embrace. 

"  Is  it  possible,"  she  says,  looking  piercingly  at  him, 
and  with  a  somber  reproach  in  her  voice,  "  that  you  saw 
all  along — you  knew — you  thought — " 

"  I  thought  nothing  !  "  he  cries,  brought  back  to  his 
senses  by  the  sternness  of  her  tone.  "  Oh,  my  dear,  do 
you  think  so  ill  of  me  as  to  suppose  that  I  was  willingly 
leading  you  on  ?  I  tell  you,  I  thought  nothing  !  I  only 
knew  that  for  two  hours  in  every  fortnight  you  allowed 
me  to  live  !  you  let  me  into  the  heaven  of  your  sweet 
company — was  not  that  enough  for  me  ?  Was  I  likely  to 
look  beyond  ?  " 

She  has  tottered  to  the  bench,  and  now  sits  half- 
crouched  in  the  corner  of  it. 

"  I  suppose,"  she  says,  shaking  her  head  hopelessly, 
"  that,  in  point  of  fact,  we  have  both  been  living  upon 
our  Sundays."  Then  after  a  pause,  with  a  sort  of  groan, 
"  Oh,  I  thought  we  might  have  been  trusted  !  " 

He  has  not  sat  down  again,  but  stands  before  her  in 
guilty,  miserable  humility,  waiting  for  his  doom. 

"  I  am  not  very  sorry  for  you,"  she  says,  after  a  while, 
lifting  her  dull  eyes  to  his  face.  "  You  are  mistaken  if 
you  think  that  I  pity  you  very  much.  You  have  your 
work — often  before  now  have  I  been  jealous  of  it,  and  of 
the  hold  it  is  gaining  over  you  !  This  is  the  best  thing 
that  could  have  happened  to  you — a  sort  of  thing  that 
your  mother  would  rejoice  at — the  best  test,  after  all. 
No  more  distractions  !  No  more  senseless  outlay  in  rail- 
way journeys  !  it  is  almost  as  good  as  being  taken  into 
partnership  ?  " 

She  glances  up  at  him  at  intervals,  as  she  plants  her 
stabs,  to  see  how  much  he  can  bear.  He  is  not  yet  at  the 
end  of  his  endurance,  apparently,  for  he  still  stands  be- 


BELINDA.  387 


fore  her  bent-headed  and  ash-white,  in  motionless  pa- 
tience. 

"But  will  any  one  tell  me,"  she  says,  dropping  her 
arms  hopelessly  to  her  sides,  and  looking  distractedly  up- 
ward, as  if  to  win  a  response  from  that  sky  to  which  we, 
in  trouble  never  answered,  ever  look,  "  what  is  to  become 
of  me?" 

Her  cruelty  toward  himself  he  had  taken  like  a  man  ; 
but  her  self-pity  is  beyond  his  sufferance. 

"  I  will  tell  you  what  will  become  of  you,"  he  says,  in 
a  rapid  broken  whisper,  sitting  down  again  beside  her. 
"  Will  you  let  me  tell  you  ?  Are  you  listening  ?  After 
all,  they  are  only  a  few  beggarly  hours  that  we  have  had 
to  live  upon  :  I  do  not  know  how  we  have  subsisted  upon 
such  a  pittance  for  so  long.  What  is  there  to  prevent  us 
— why  should  not  we — " 

"  Stop  !  "  she  cries,  hoarsely,  thrusting  out  her  spread 
hands,  and  pushing  him  away  from  her.  "  I  know  what 
you  are  going  to  say  !  I  know  it  as  well  as  if  you  had 
already  said  it." 

The  terror  in  her  eyes,  the  shrinking  gesture,  have  set 
him  almost  beside  himself. 

"  You  say  that  you  are  not  at  all  sorry  for  me,"  he 
says,  with  a  sort  of  hard  sob,  "and  I  dare  say  you 
are  right ;  but  I  must  ask  you  to — to — make  a  little 
allowance  for  me  !  I  am  not  in  my  right  wits.  It  was 
unmanly  of  me — I  had  no  right  to*shock — to  outrage 
you." 

"  I  am  not  in  the  least  shocked,"  she  says,  with  a  slow 
distinctness  ;  "  that  shows,  I  suppose,  to  what  a  depth  I 
must  have  fallen.  I  stopped  you  because — because  I 
knew  that  if  I  let  you  finish  your  sentence  I  should — not 
— have — said — no — to — you.  I — should — have — said — 


yes." 


She  pauses,  unable  to  fetch  her  breath.     And  yet,  de- 


388  BELINDA. 


spite  the  confession  in  her  words,  of  her  own  defeat  and 
his  victory,  something  in  her  air  holds  him  aloof. 

"  But  if — "  she  goes  on,  presently,  fixing  him  with  the 
terrible  appeal  of  her  eyes,  while  her  face  grows  sharp 
and  thin — "  if  you  are — what  I  have  always  thought  you 
— if  I  know  you  right,  you — will — never — finish  it  !  " 

There  is  a  dead  silence  ;  she  still  holding  him  with 
that  look,  until  she  knows  that  in  her  dreary  battle  she 
has  vanquished. 

"  And  now,"  she  says,  with  a  tearless  decision,  "  go  ! 
I  did  not  tell  the  truth  when  I  said  I  was  not  sorry  for 
you  !  Oh,  I  am  sorry  !  I  AM  !  There  !  go — what  is  the 
use  of  crying  ?  I  hate  to  see  a  man  cry  !  God  bless 
you  !  God  be  with  you  !  Go  !  " 

And  he,  obedient,  goes. 


PERIOD    IV. 

"  These  violent  delights  have  violent  ends." 


CHAPTER  I. 

"  Unser  Sommer  ist  nur  ein  griin-angestrichener  Winter." 

THE  lives  of  the  Professor,  of  Mrs.  Forth,  of  Sarah 
—of  all  those  with  whom  we  have  had  any  concern — are 
poorer  by  a  full  year  than  when  we  left  them.  The 
"  Fragments  of  Menander "  have  been  given  to  the 
world  ;  and  as  certainly  not  less  than  three  people  have 
read  them,  they  may  be  said  to  have  been  a  success.  So 
much  so,  at  all  events,  as  to  encourage  the  Professor  to 
delve  and  grub  in  the  entrails  of  the  Fathers  for  new 
Fragments.  For  the  present,  however,  he  has  to  delve 
and  grub  alone.  For  the  present  his  secretary  has  broken 
down  ;  for  the  present  the  pack-horse  has  sunk  down  be- 
neath its  pack.  Doubtless  it  will  soon  be  set  on  its  legs 
again,  and  enabled  to  resume  it  ;  but,  for  the  present,  its 
back  is  unladen,  and  it  is  turned  out  to  grass.  Months  of 
unlightened,  hopeless,  joyless  labor  !  Her  only  wonder 
in  looking  back  afterward  upon  them  is  that  they  did  not 
sooner  work  their  inevitable  effect.  Months  of  unrelent- 
ing application,  of  chest-contracting  bending  over  manu- 
script and  proof ;  of  entire  absence  of  exercise  and  re- 
laxation— for  of  her  own  will  she  has  forsworn  both. 
Thought  is  deader,  memory  fainter — and  for  what  object 
but  to  kill  both  does  she  now  live  ? — in  the  exhaustion 


390  BELINDA. 


consequent  on  overwork.  Why  and  for  whom  should 
she  spare  herself  ?  She  will  go  until  she  drops.  And  the 
Professor,  delighted  to  acquiesce  unquestioningly  in  a 
metamorphosis  so  greatly  to  his  advantage,  always  incu- 
rious as  to  interests  that  lie  out  of  his  own  beat,  and  with 
the  professed  invalid's  radical  incredulity  as  to  the  possi- 
bility of  any  one  else  being  either  sick  or  weary,  drives 
his  willing  horse  merrily  along,  until  one  fine  day  she 
falls  down  between  the  shafts.  How  glad  she  is  when 
the  break-down  comes  !  How  intensely  she  prays  that  it 
may  be  the  final  one  !  But  it  is  not  so.  By  whatever 
door  Mrs.  Forth  is  to  leave  this  world,  it  is  certainly  not 
by  that  of  the  entire  derangement  of  the  nervous  system, 
for  which  attentive  doctors  unanimously  prescribe  imme- 
diate change,  idleness,  pleasure.  The  Professor  is  always 
angry  with  any  one  for  being  ill  ;  but  against  a  sickness 
which  involves  undone  work,  expensive  medicine,  and  a 
costly  move,  his  indignation  is  too  deep  for  words.  He 
is  scarcely  more  angry  with  her,  however,  for  falling  sick, 
than  she  is  with  herself  for  recovering.  For  as  long  as 
possible  she  has  discredited  it.  Her  physic-bottles  vex 
him  hardly  more  than  do  her  returning  appetite,  restored 
slumber,  waxing  flesh,  and  waning  fever,  herself.  She 
had  wished  to  die  ;  and  he,  since  she  has  turned  out  so 
unhealthy,  would  not  be  sorry  to  be  rid  of  her.  And  so 
she  lives  ;  lives  to  put  him  to  the  expense  of  a  migration 
to  the  English  Lakes.  He  seems  unable  to  shake  off  the 
idea  that  she  has  done  it  on  purpose. 

It  has  been  as  usual  a  wet  morning,  and  to  the  bounds 
of  the  Lowood  Hotel  on  Windermere  all  its  impatient 
guests  have  been  confined.  Now  that  afternoon  has  come, 
it  has  brought  with  it  a  sort  of  doubtful  fairness  ;  more  a 
cessation  of  storm  than  anything  approaching  positive  fine 
weather.  Wray's  Castle,  lifting  its  gray  towers  from  its 


BELINDA.  391 


woods  exactly  opposite,  has  come  into  sight  again.  The 
Langdale  Pikes  have  just  shaken  the  rain-clouds  off  their 
notchy  crests  ;  but  they  hang  poised  above  them,  ready 
at  once  to  descend  and  clip  them.  They  have  still  fast 
hold  of  Wetherlam,  though  their  lucent  lightness  shows 
that  the  sun  is  just  behind  them,  and  will  presently  drive 
his  brave  bright  car  over  their  vaporous  bodies.  It  is 
very  clear,  from  the  high-flung  windows  of  a  sitting-room 
on  the  second  floor,  and  also  from  the  fact  of  its  being  a 
sitting-room  at  all,  firstly  that  Professor  Forth  is  not  in 
it,  and  secondly  that  it  is  not  his.  Since  his  wife's  sister 
and  grandmo.ther  have  thought  it  necessary  to  give  her 
the  meeting  here,  he  has  no  objection  to  her  taking  ad- 
vantage of  their  salon,  since  he  is  quite  unequal  to  the 
expense  of  providing  her  with  one  of  her  own. 

In  a  horse-hair  arm-chair  of  that  peculiar  lodging- 
house  build  which  pinions  the  arms  and  forces  the  head 
forward,  sits  Mrs.  Churchill,  placidly  watching  an  un- 
lading coach.  At  a  certain  somewhat  early  period  of  old 
age,  given  an  easy  temper  and  an  entire  absence  of  feel- 
ing, a  person  often  appears  for  a  few  years  to  stand  sta- 
tionary. Since  we  last  saw  her,  Mrs.  Churchill  has  stood 
stationary.  Not  one  more  has  been  added  to  the  number 
of  her  few  wrinkles,  and  her  old  dimple  still  goes  and 
comes  with  her  agreeable  smile.  On  the  sofa,  by  right 
of  her  invalidhood,  Belinda  is  lying,  with  a  crop  head  of 
little  curls  ;  and  out  of  the  window  not  occupied  by  Mrs. 
Churchill,  Sarah  is  hanging  most  of  her  body,  alternately 
watching  with  feverish  interest,  and  looking  back  over 
her  own  shoulder  to  chronicle  the  doings  of  the  family 
who  occupy  the  floor  beneath  them,  and  who,  happily 
for  her,  have  a  balcony  upon  which  they  now  and  then 
emerge. 

"  There  are  two  brothers,  and  two  sisters,  and  a  wife," 
cries  she  animatedly.  "  I  can  not  make  out  to  whom  the 


392  BELINDA. 


wife  belongs  ;  none  of  them  seem  to  care  much  about 
her ! " 

"  Perhaps  she  had  money,"  rejoins  Mrs.  Churchill ; 
u  dear  me  ! "  returning  to  the  contemplation  of  her  coach, 
"what  a  load  for  those  poor  horses,  and  how  they  are 
smoking  ! " 

"  They  are  all  out  on  the  balcony  now,"  says  Sarah, 
delighted  ;  "  come  quick,  Belinda,  and  look  ! " 

"  I  will  take  your  word  for  it,"  replies  Belinda,  lazily. 

"  It  makes  one  quite  wretched  to  see  such  cruelty  ! " 
says  Mrs.  Churchill,  in  a  thoroughly  comfortable  voice, 
pursuing  her  own  subject. 

"  They  have  been  playing  battledoor  and  shuttlecock," 
says  Sarah,  narratively.  "  I  wish  we  had  a  battledoor  and 
shuttlecock." 

"  Whom  would  you  expect  to  play  with  you  ?  "  asks 
her  grandmother,  dryly  ;  "  the  professor,  or  me  ?  " 

"  They  have  dropped  the  shuttlecock  into  the  road," 
continues  Sarah,  narratively,  and  in  a  tone  of  breathless 
interest.  "  There  is  another  man  with  them  now ;  he 
can  not  be  a  third  brother ;  they  are  betting  him  a  shil- 
ling that  he  will  not  climb  over  the  balcony  and  swarm 
down  the  iron  leg  to  fetch  it.  What  a  fool  he  will  be  if 
he  does  !  Surely  I  have  seen  him  before  somewhere  !  I 
wish  he  would  look  up.  Why,  granny  !  Belinda  !  gran- 
ny ! — it  is — it  must  be — young  Bellairs  !  " 

This  time  both  obey  her  summons  ;  but  whether  it  be 
that  their  footsteps  make  more  noise  than  they  are  aware 
of,  or  for  whatever  other  reason,  some  of  the  party  below 
choose  this  unfortunate  moment  to  look  up  ;  and  in  a  sec- 
ond they  have  all  three  slunk  shamefacedly  back  again. 

"  Young  Bellairs  !  Poor  young  Bellairs  ! "  cries  Sa- 
rah, throwing  herself  into  a  chair,  and  chuckling.  "  Young 
Bellairs,  and  the  dinghy  !  Do  you  remember,  Belinda  ?  " 

(It  is  not  very  likely  that  Belinda  has  forgotten.) 


BELINDA.  393 


"  I  wonder  is  there  a  dinghy  here  that  I  could  take 
him  out  in  ?  "  says  Miss  Churchill,  thoughtfully.  "  Gran- 
ny, are  you  aware  that  a  dinghy  only  holds  two  ?  but  if 
you  insist  upon  it,  in  the  interests  of  propriety,  we  will 
squeeze  you  in  as  well." 

Mrs.  Churchill  laughs. 

"  I  need  not  decide  at  once,  need  I  ?  "  says  she,  enter- 
ing into  the  joke  ;  "  and  as  the  dinghy  is  not  here,  and 
the  carriage  is,  we  may  as  well  be  setting  off  on  our 
drive." 

"  He  will  see  me  get  in  ! "  cries  Sarah,  skipping  to  the 
glass,  and  adjusting  her  hat;  "they  watch  us  quite  as 
much  as  we  watch  them.  Well,  let  him  !  I  flatter  my- 
self that  I  can  get  into  a  carriage  with  any  woman  in 
England ! " 

They  are  gone  (not,  however,  before  Miss  Churchill 
has  once  again  put  in  her  head  to  say  urgently,  "  Mind 
that  you  keep  a  good  lookout  upon  them  !  "),  and  Belinda 
has  the  sitting-room  and  all  the  horse-hair  chairs  to  her- 
self. Perhaps  the  better  to  comply  with  her  sister's 
exhortations,  she  abandons  the  sofa,  and,  drawing  up 
her  grandmother's  chair  yet  closer  to  the  window,  looks 
dreamily  out  on  the  lake,  from  which  the  hotel  is  parted 
only  by  the  road,  a  quickset  hedge,  and  a  strip  of  grass. 
Upon  the  lower  foreground  hills  opposite  —  so  dark  a 
second  ago — what  a  nation  of  sunbeams  has  swooped ! 
and  now,  as  quickly  they  are  gone  again,  and  only  the 
lawn  that  slopes  to  the  water  has  become  dazzling  green 
as  any  chrysoprase. 

If  she  had  died  as  she  wished,  she  would  not  have 
seen  that  chrysoprase  green,  nor  the  masterless  wavelets 
sucking  in  riot  in  among  the  stakes  of  the  little  pier  ;  nor 
the  small  white  yacht  courtesy  ing  and  congeeing  along 
over  them.  Is  it  worth  while  to  have  kept  alive,  in  order 
to  be  looking  at  them  here— alone  ? 


394:  BELINDA. 


What  a  noise  the  family  below  are  making  !  What 
can  they  be  doing?  Surely  they  must  be  engaged  in 
some  pastime  more  violent  than  battledoor  and  shuttle- 
cock. They  sound  as  if  they  were  throwing  chairs  at 
each  other.  How  plainly  she  can  distinguish  Bellairs's 
voice  ! 

It  was  at  St.  Ursula's  party  that  she  first  heard  that 
voice.  It  was  in  answer  to  some  sentence  addressed  to 
her  by  that  voice,  that  her  own  suddenly  broke  down  ; 
it  was  while  that  voice  was  still  in  her  ears  that  she 
caught  sight  once  again  of  him  who  made  her  inattentive 
to  all  voices  !  She  moves  uneasily  in  her  chair.  She 
wishes  that  Bellairs  had  not  come. 

What  a  sudden  spurt  of  daring  glory  on  the  stern 
necks  of  the  Langdale  Pikes  !  She  can  see  their  hollow 
deep  clefts,  and  their  scattered  verdure,  broken  through 
by  green  rock-masses.  She  discovers  a  water-fall  hang- 
ing unmoving  on  the  mountain-flank.  How  they  are 
giving  up  their  gray  secrets  to  the  sun  !  It  is  cruel  to  be 
looking  at  them  all  alone  !  to  have  to  look  now  and  for- 
ever at  all  fair  sights  alone  !  She  should  be  used  to  the 
thought  by  now,  surely.  What  is  it  that  is  giving  it 
such  new  and  pricking  life  to-day  ?  Is  it  Bellairs's  voice  ? 
She  will  hear  it  less,  perhaps,  if  she  have  some  occupa- 
tion to  distract  her. 

She  takes  up  the  advertisement  sheet  of  the  "  Times," 
lying  near  her,  on  the  floor,  and  throws  her  eyes  over  the 
births,  deaths,  and  marriages. 

For  months  she  has  been  unable  to  read  the  obituary 
without  envying  every  one  of  the  dead  people  recorded 
in  it :  the  old  man  gently  extinguished  at  eighty ;  the 
deeply-mourned  wife,  torn  away  in  her  prime ;  the 
strong  man  violently  perishing  in  flood  or  field  ;  the  tiny 
sister-children  swept  away  within  two  days  of  each  other, 
by  the  hot  fever.  There  is  not  one  among  them  all  that 


BELINDA.  395 


she  does  not  envy  !  They  are  out  of  it  !  They  have 
done  with  it !  done  with  the  tangle,  done  with  the  heart- 
break, done  with  the  strife !  She  envies  them  now. 
And  through  them  all  she  still  hears  plainly  the  voice  of 
Bellairs. 

Thank  Heaven,  however,  she  will  not  hear  it  any  more 
for  the  present !  He  has  gone  out.  Surely  that  is  he 
sauntering  down  to  the  little  pier,  with  a  smart  girl  in  a 
red  cotton  gown — a  red  cotton  gown  that  but  now  incar- 
nadined the  balcony  beneath  Mrs.  Forth. 

He  is  unfastening  a  little  boat ;  he  is  helping  his  com- 
panion in !  Belinda  laughs  aloud.  Some  one  has  been 
too  quick  for  Sarah  !  Some  one  has  stepped  down  into 
the  dinghy  before  her  ! 

The  incident  gives  a  lighter  turn  to  her  meditations, 
and  she  drops  the  obituary,  and  follows  with  her  eyes 
the  little  boat  and  its  two  occupants,  with  as  eager  an  at- 
tention as  her  sister  might  have  given  it,  until  it  becomes 
a  speck  upon  the  water.  She  laughs  again.  There  is  a 
sound  of  wheels.  Is  it  her  grandmother  and  Sarah  re- 
turning ?  She  longs  for  them  to  come  back,  to  have  the 
pleasure  of  telling  them.  She  leans  her  charming  cropped 
head  out  of  the  window.  No  !  it  is  a  coach  changing 
horses  ;  next  a  char-d-banc  disgorging  its  stiff-legged 
load  ;  and  now,  for  variety  of  interest,  a  steamer  is  com- 
ing churning  up  to  the  little  pier.  Will  any  one  get  out 
of  it  ?  Any  one  to  form  a  new  element  at  the  table-d'hdte 
to-night,  and  be  speculated  about  as  one  speculates  upon 
the  lives  and  habits  of  those  with  whom  an  hotel  life 
brings  one  into  brief  and  jostling  contact  ?  The  steamer 
is  crowded,  black  with  thick-packed  heads.  But  it  seems 
as  if  no  one  were  minded  to  alight  from  her. 

Yes,  one  man  has  landed  ;  a  man  now  crossing  the 
pier  with  a  knapsack  on  his  back  ;  a  pedestrian  tourist, 
obviously.  Very  likely  an  Oxbridge  man,  with  a  Plato 


396  BELINDA. 


in  his  wallet,  come  to  woo  philosophy  in  the  heart  of  the 
hills.  If  he  is  so,  perhaps  she  may  know  him — by  sight 
at  all  events.  She  rubs  her  eyes.  What  tricks  they  play 
one !  Do  they  see  ill,  or  is  there  a  little  something  in 
the  man's  gait  that  might  remind  her  of — but  no  !  it  is 
the  sight  of  Bellairs,  and  the  memories  he  has  aroused 
that  have  put  such  an  insanity  into  her  head.  Perhaps 
sickness  has  left  her  vision  weak  and  deceptive.  He  is 
drawing  nearer — very  near,  past  the  strip  of  grass, 
through  the  wicket,  across  the  road.  She  has  been 
thrusting  her  head  out  of  window  to  have  a  nearer  view, 
and  the  better  to  correct  her  delusion.  But  suddenly  she 
draws  it  in  again,  and  with  a  small,  choked  cry,  falls 
back  in  the  horse-hair  chair.  It  is  not  corrected  !  It  is 
confirmed,  and  turned  into  truth  and  certainty.  For  a 
few  moments  she  lies  stock-still.  Has  her  face  caught 
from  Wetherlam  and  the  Pikes  some  of  their  stormy  illu- 
mination ?  If  she  had  died,  she  would  not  have  seen 
him  crossing  that  pier,  treading  that  path,  unlatching 
that  wicket-gate ! 

It  has  been  hitherto  only  in  her  dreams  that  he  has 
ever  walked  toward  her.  She  is  glad — oh,  glad — that 
she  did  not  die  !  And  what  has  brought  him  hither  ?  Is 
is  possible  that  he  has  heard  of  her  presence  here,  and, 
unable  any  longer  to  endure  those  torments  which  had  so 
nearly  laid  her  low,  has  fled  hither  in  madness  to  rejoin 
her  ?  But  in  a  second  she  has  exonerated  him  from  the 
suspicion.  She  had  told  him  to  go,  and  he  had  gone  ; 
and  she  knows  him  well  enough  to  feel  sure  that,  without 
her  bidding — cost  him  what  it  might — he  would  not  re- 
turn. It  is,  then,  an  accident — a  happy,  most  happy  ac- 
cident !  What  pleasant  accidents  can  and  may  happen  ! 
For  an  accident  no  one  can  be  blamed.  For  an  accident 
no  one's  conscience  need  smite  them.  All  the  conse- 
quences of  an  accident  may  be  taken  with  an  easy  mind. 


BELINDA.  397 


Her  eyes  stray  away  toward  the  high  mountains,  but 
once  again  they  are  grasped  so  close  in  the  clouds'  moist 
arms,  that  not  a  glimpse  of  crest  or  ridge  is  to  be  caught. 
Are  not  they  tired  of  their  centenary — nay,  aeon-long  fight 
with  the  vapors?  Worsted,  worsting,  will  there  never 
be  an  end  to  it  ?  It  is  like  her  fight  with  her  own  heart. 
Vapors,  sunbeams,  waterfalls  ;  to-morrow — to-morrow  she 
will  be  looking  at  you  not  alone.  To-morrow  !  But  will 
he  be  still  here  to-morrow  ?  Unless  she  give  him  leave 
to  stay  (and  how  dare  she  give  that  leave  ?)  may  not  he 
be  off  before  day-dawn  ? 

By  the  noise  below  her  window,  she  knows  that  an- 
other coach  has  driven  up,  and  is  changing  horses.  A 
panic  seizes  her.  What  security  has  she  that  he  may 
not  have  halted  here  for  only  ten  minutes,  and  be  going 
on  by  it  ?  She  springs  to  her  trembling  legs,  and,  return- 
ing to  the  window  again,  looks  out,  but  this  time  in  hid- 
ing behind  the  curtain.  Two  or  three  of  the  passengers 
have  got  down,  and  are  beginning  to  climb  back  into 
their  places  again.  Some  luggage  is  being  hauled  from 
the  roof.  She  scans  narrowly  the  crowded  travelers,  and 
then  draws  a  long  breath.  There  is  not  one  among  them 
that  bears  the  most  fugitive  resemblance  to  him.  She 
is  reprieved.  He  will  be  here,  at  all  events,  till  to-mor- 
row. He  will  dine,  almost  certainly,  at  the  table-cThote. 

A  hot,  excited  smile  breaks  over  her  face.  She  will 
have  the  advantage  over  him.  She  will  expect  to  see 
him  ;  and  he  will  not  expect  to  see  her.  Will  the  shock 
be  too  much  for  him  ?  Will  he  be  betrayed  by  its  sud- 
denness into  any  too  evident  and  overt  emotion  ?  But 
no  !  He  is  a  man,  now  ;  strong  and  self-contained.  How 
much  older  he  has  grown  to  look  !  Even  her  one  cursory 
glance  has  told  her  that.  A  pang  of  regret  for  that  pas- 
sionate gone  boyhood,  which  was  so  absolutely  hers,  con- 
tracts her  heart.  No  !  he  will  show  no  emotion.  Per- 


398  BELINDA. 


haps  he  will  turn  a  shade  paler.     As  for  her,  she  will  not 
be  pale,  neither  red. 

Her  thought  breaks  off  abruptly,  dispersed  and  ban- 
ished by  a  knock  at  the  door.  Ere  she  can  cry  "  Come 
in  ! "  forestalling  her  permission  of  admittance,  one  of 
the  heated  and  hurried  hotel-waiters,  chronically  rushing 
from  Sunday  morning  to  Saturday  night,  has  entered — 
has  deposited  a  note  before  her,  and  has  disappeared  ere 
she  has  time  to  put  any  question  as  to  its  source  and  ori- 
gin. Not  that  there  is  much  need  for  such,  although 
only  twice  before  in  all  her  life  has  she  seen  that  hand- 
writing. A  mixed  memory  of  the  two  former  occasions 
rushes  storming  back  upon  her  mind  ;  a  memory  of  the 
misery  of  that  early  summer  morning  in  Dresden  ;  of  the 
hell  of  that  Folkestone  winter  evening.  She  has  come  in 
for  a  good  deal  of  misery  in  her  day.  She  looks  in  pro- 
crastination at  the  device  on  the  seal — it  is  sealed — and 
at  the  address.  Surely  his  handwriting,  too,  is  changed  ; 
more  virile,  steadier,  less  emotional.  She  holds  the  note 
between  her  two  palms  (how  lately  he  has  held  it  in  his  !) 
in  a  trembling  luxury  of  delay.  It  is  only  the  recollection 
of  how  soon,  how  immediately,  how  at  once,  her  solitude 
may  be  put  an  end  to  by  the  return  of  her  sister  and 
grandmother,  that  at  length  decides  her  to  open  it. 
What  can  he  have  to  say  to  her  ?  Not  much,  whatever 
it  is.  It  will  not  take  her  long  to  read. 

"  I  have  just  seen  your  name  in  the  Visitors'  Book ; 
believe  me,  it  is  by  a  pure  accident  that  I  am  here  ;  must 
I  go  ?  If  I  do  not  see  you  at  the  table  d'hote,  I  shall  un- 
derstand that  I  must.  D.  R." 

Long  after  she  has  mastered  its  contents — surely  not 
difficult  of  comprehension  —  she  remains  staring  at  the 
page  with  wide,  dull  eyes  :  a  feeling  of  blankest  disap- 
pointment at  her  heart.  And  yet,  had  she  expected  him, 


BELINDA.  399 


in  writing,  on  a  paper  committed  to  a  careless  hand — a 
paper  that  might  easily  go  astray,  or  be  lost — to  break 
out  into  compromising,  culpable  endearments  ?  She 
would  be  outraged  by  the  suggestion.  But  oh !  it  is 
cruel,  cruel  of  him  to  have  thrust  the  weight  of  the  decis- 
ion upon  her ;  to  have  taken  their  meeting  out  of  the 
province  of  accident  into  which  she  had  joyfully  recog- 
nized it  as  having  fallen  ! 

Since  he  has  forced  choice  upon  her,  there  is  but 
one  way  in  which  she  can  choose.  He  must  have  known 
it !  He  must  have  done  it  on  purpose !  Honorable  of 
him  ?  Perhaps  !  Her  mind  gives  a  frigid  assent.  But 
oh,  cold,  cold,  and  most  cruel !  His  very  face  has  told 
her  that  he  was  changed.  He  has  grown  wise  at  last. 
Well,  he  shall  never  know  that  she  was  not  as  wise  as 
he. 

She  has  crumpled  the  paper  angrily  in  her  hand,  and 
begun  to  walk  agitatedly  up  and  down  the  room,  press- 
ing and  kneading  it  with  her  fevered  fingers.  Then  her 
mood  changes,  and  she  stops  and  anxiously  smooths  out 
the  letter  again.  Perhaps  she  is  wronging  him.  Per- 
haps in  the  first  stun  of  that  surprise  he  has  scarcely 
known  what  he  wrote  ;  has  not  perceived  the  drift  of  his 
own  words.  Perhaps,  on  a  closer  examination,  she  may 
find,  by  the  tremulousness  of  his  characters,  that  he  has 
not  his  wits  about  him.  But  no.  There  is  no  tremulous- 
ness.  Strong  and  decided  is  each  up-and-down  stroke. 
The  man  who  penned  that  note  was  obviously  in  fullest 
possession  of  his  intellect  and  mastery  over  his  nerves. 
She  is  still  poring  over  the  few  matter-of-fact  words, 
vainly  trying  to  wrench  them  into  a  sense  that  they  can 
not  bear,  when  a  high,  light  laugh,  which  can  not  be  as- 
cribed to  any  one  but  Miss  Churchill,  heard  on  the  land- 
ing outside,  makes  her,  in  guilty  haste,  thrust  the  docu- 
ment into  her  pocket.  It  is  only  just  in  time  ;  for  there 


400  BELINDA. 


is  always  a  sort  of  whirlwind  suddenness  about  Sarah's 
entries. 

"  Well  ! "  cries  she,  in  high  excitement,  "  have  you 
kept  a  good  lookout,  as  I  told  you  ?  Has  he  discovered 
that  I  am  here?  Where  is  he?  what  has  he  been  do- 
ing?" 

It  is  a  proof  how  far  Mrs.  Forth's  thoughts  have  been 
straying  from  the  young  gentleman  in  question,  that  at 
first  she  looks  back  at  her  sister  in  blank  stupidity,  not 
understanding  to  what  or  whom  she  alludes. 

"  Who  ?  "  she  says  thickly  ;  "  what  ?— Oh  !  "  (with  a 
forced  laugh  ;  comprehension  coming  tardily  back),  "  of 
course  !  but  I  have  bad  news  for  you  :  he  went  out  at 
once  in  a  dinghy — I  do  not  think  they  call  them  dinghies 
here — but  at  all  events  in  a  little  cock-boat — with  the  girl 
in  red." 

"  Did  he  ?  "  replied  Sarah,  simulating  the  first  symp- 
toms of  a  swoon,  and  falling  in  a  heap  upon  a  sofa  ;  "  then, 
granny,  cut  my  stay-laces,  and  burn  every  goose-quill  you 
can  find  in  the  room  under  my  nose  ;  for  there  is  nothing 
left  me  but  to  faint ! " 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  Professor's  room,  as  well  as  Belinda's  own,  is  at 
the  top  of  the  house.  Economy,  as  is  well  known,  has 
to  be  sought  in  hotels  by  climbing  ;  and  the  Professor  has 
pursued  her  to  the  leads. 

At  their  first  coming,  indeed,  the  numerous  flights  of 
stairs  to  be  surmounted  ere  attaining  her  sloped  roof  and 
her  truckle-bed,  has  proved  a  severe  tax  upon  Mrs.  Forth's 
enfeebled  strength ;  but  use  and  returning  health  have 
made  them  easy.  At  all  events,  Belinda  does  not  now 


BELINDA.  401 


think  twice  about  climbing  them,  even  if  no  absolute 
necessity  prompt  the  ascent.  Is  it  absolute  necessity 
that,  half  an  hour  after  Sarah's  return,  finds  her  first 
faintly  knocking,  and  then  looking  uncertainly  into  her 
husband's  room  ? 

"  Who  is  there  ?  who  is  keeping  the  door  open,  and 
creating  a  draught  ?  Pray  shut  it  at  once  !  "  cries  a 
crabbed  voice  from  the  interior. 

She  complies  by  entering.  Owing  to  the  confined 
space  allotted  to  him,  the  Professor  has  to  use  some  nicety 
of  management  in  the  disposition  of  his  property — a  dis- 
position which  entails  the  entire  going  to  the  wall  of  his 
toilet  arrangements.  Both  bed  and  floor  are  strewed  with 
folios  and  MS.,  which  are  piled,  to  the  exclusion  of  basin 
and  ewer,  even  upon  the  cramped  wash-hand  stand. 

Upon  the  one  chair  the  occupant  of  the  attic  is  seated  ; 
a  fur-coat  wrapped  about  his  thin  figure,  a  skull-cap  on 
his  head,  his  feet  aloft  upon  a  hot-water  bottle,  a  writing- 
case  upon  his  meager  knees,  and  an  ink-horn  in  his  left 
hand. 

"  Pray  be  careful  where  you  step  !  "  he  says  sharply, 
looking  up- and  becoming  aware  of  the  tall,  fair  presence 
that  has  enriched  his  neighborhood.  "  Do  not  you  see 
that  you  are  treading  upon  Tertullian  ?  " 

She  had  not  seen  it ;  but  she  at  once  corrects  her 
error. 

"  I  believe  that  I  expressed  a  wish  not  to  be  intruded 
upon  this  afternoon,"  he  continues,  since  she  does  not  at 
once  speak  or  explain  her  entrance  ;  "  owing  to  having  to 
support  the  whole  weight  of  my  work  single-handed  " 
(with  a  resentful  glance  at  her  idle  and  obviously  con- 
valescent beauty),  "  I  am  very  much  pressed  for  time. 
No  doubt  you  have  some  good  reason  to  give  for  infring- 
ing my  injunctions." 

"  I  thought  that  you  might  be  surprised  if  you  did  not 


402  BELINDA. 


see  me  at  the  tdble-tfhdte"  replies  she  coldly ;  "  so  I 
came  to  tell  you  that  I  do  not  mean  to  appear  at  it  to- 
night, and  to  ask  whether  you  have  any  objection  to  my 
staying  away  ?  " 

"  Is  it  possible  that  you  are  threatened  with  a  return 
of  indisposition  ?  "  he  asks,  with  a  sudden,  quick  look  of 
peevish  anxiety. 

She  shakes  her  head,  smiling  suddenly  and  bitterly. 
It  is  so  apparent  that  his  solicitude  is  due,  not  to  care  for 
her  health,  but  to  apprehension  of  a  new  doctor's  bill. 

"  Thanks,  no." 

"  You  appear  to  be  unaccountably  out  of  breath,"  he 
says,  in  a  vexed  voice. 

"  Not  more  than  any  one  must  be,  in  climbing  to  this 
cock-loft,"  replies  she  sullenly. 

Perhaps  his  examination  of  her  face  has  reassured  him 
as  to  her  soundness,  for  once  more  he  dips  his  pen  into 
the  ink-horn. 

"You  have  not  answered  my  question,"  says  she, 
brusquely,  perceiving  in  him  a  deliberate  intention  of 
henceforth  ignoring  her. 

He  makes  a  gesture  of  annoyed  impatience. 

"  It  scarcely  appeared  to  me  to  require  an  answer  ;  I 
suppose  you  gave  notice  this  morning  to  the  manager  of 
your  intention  to  be  absent  ?  " 

"  No,  I  did  not." 

"  Then  of  course  it  is  out  of  the  question  :  according 
to  the  rules  of  the  hotel,  every  meal  not  expressly  coun- 
termanded is  charged  for  ;  and  I  am  really  not  in  a  posi- 
tion to  countenance  such  irrational  waste." 

At  the  contempt  and  churlishness  of  his  tone,  her 
cheek  burns. 

"  It  would  be  no  waste  if  I  ordered  nothing  instead," 
she  answers,  doggedly  ;  "  and  I  am  more  than  willing  to 
fast." 


BELINDA.  403 


"  And  incur  the  risk  of  a  relapse  ?  "  cries  he,  in  hasty 
displeasure.  "  I  must  imperatively  forbid  your  exposing 
yourself  to  any  such  hazard  !  " 

"  I  could  have  a  cup  of  tea  in  granny's  sitting-room  ; 
I  am  sure  that  she  would  not  grudge  me  one." 

"I  request  that  you  will  do  nothing  of  the  kind,"  re- 
joins he,  nettled,  whether  at  his  interrupted  work,  or  at 
the  accent,  which  she  has  taken  small  pains  to  render 
slight,  laid  by  her  upon  the  personal  pronoun.  "  Your 
grandmother  is,  of  course,  mistress  of  her  own  actions  ; 
but  since  it  is  a  well-known  fact  that,  if  you  once  indulge 
in  such  senseless  luxuries  as  a  private  sitting-room,  and 
meals  served  separately,  the  rate  of  charges  in  your  case 
is  instantly  and  exorbitantly  increased,  I  must  beg  you 
at  least  to  conform  to  the  ordinary  rules  of  the  house." 

He  is  so  surprised  by  the  entire  silence  in  which  she 
accepts  his  fiat,  that  he  looks  up  irritatedly  at  her,  stand- 
ing in  sullen,  motionless  loveliness  beside  him  ;  looks  up 
to  find  her  regarding  him  with  a  smile  hard  to  qualify. 

"  It  is  by  your  express  wish,  then,  that  I  dine,"  she 
says,  with  a  low  emphasis  ;  "  you  insist  upon  my  dining  ?  " 

"  I  see  no  reason  for  an  arbitrary  departure  from  your 
usual  habits,"  replies  he,  with  ill-humor  ;  "  you  are  ob- 
viously perfectly  restored  to  your  normal  state  of  health  ; 
any  one,"  with  a  recurrence  of  that  streak  of  resentment, 
"would  be  surprised  now  to  learn  that  you  were  re- 
garded as  an  invalid  ;  there  is  nothing  that  gains  upon  a 
person  more,  by  indulgence  in  them,  than  valetudinarian 
fancies." 

The  singular  smile  still  stays,  as  it  were  stereotyped 
upon  her  features. 

"  You  speak  from  experience  ?  "  she  says,  in  a  tone  of 
quiet  insolence. 

The  color  mounts  to  his  parched  face. 

"  You  are  implying,"  he  says,  with  deliberate  anger, 


404:  BELINDA. 


"  as  you  have  frequently  and  offensively  implied  before, 
that  I  am  a  malade  imaginaire" 

She  shrugs  her  shoulders  carelessly. 

"  I  do  not  think — I  have  never  thought — that  you  are 
nearly  so  ill  as  you  imagine  yourself  to  be." 

"  Do  not  you  ?  "  he  answers.  "  Possibly  some  day  you 
may  be  undeceived." 

There  is  such  a  pregnant  weight  of  solemn  meaning 
in  his  look  and  words,  that,  for  a  moment,  she  glances  at 
him,  staggered  and  half -frightened  ;  he  waving  her,  in  a 
displeasure  too  deep  for  further  speech,  to  the  door.  But 
the  impression  does  not  last  beyond  the  first  flight  of 
stairs. 

"  Pooh  !  "  she  says,  reaching  the  landing,  "  he  will 
sell  us  all  out !  " 

The  table-tfhdte  bell  has  rung,  and,  answering  its  call, 
the  visitors  at  the  Lowood  Hotel  have  poured  into  the 
large,  light  dining-room,  and  quickly  filled  up  the  two 
long  tables,  where,  as  the  season  advances  to  its  height, 
elbow-room  becomes  daily  scarcer.  The  established  visit- 
ors have  made  their  way  to  their  habitual  places,  and  the 
new  ones  been  ushered  to  theirs.  The  oldest  inhabitant, 
who  always  says  grace,  has  said  it,  and  the  landlord  is 
ladling  out  the  soup.  Belinda  is  in  her  usual  seat,  between 
her  husband  and  her  sister.  It  is  a  situation  of  her  own 
choosing — as  far  as  regards  her  sister,  at  least.  The  Pro- 
fessor is  not  a  good  person  to  depend  upon  for  general 
conversation  through  a  long  dinner  ;  the  almost  insoluble 
problem  of  how  to  obtain  his  full  pennyworth — how  to 
eat  so  much  as  to  insure  that  no  extortionate  profit  shall 
accrue  from  him  to  the  proprietors  of  the  hotel,  and  yet 
how  to  eat  so  little  and  so  lightly  as  not  to  alarm  his  coy 
and  skittish  digestion — keeping  him  for  the  most  part 
wholly  silent.  But  Sarah  is  royally  indifferent  as  to  what 


BELINDA.  405 


pecuniary  advantage  may  be  derived  from  her,  and  has 
no  more  consciousness  of  digestion  than  an  emu ;  so, 
upon  her  sprightly  comments  on  their  fellow-diners,  Be- 
linda has  usually  relied  to  drag  her  through  the  ennui  of 
the  long  and  weary  courses. 

To-day  she  lends  them  but  an  abstracted  ear.  Though 
she  has  entered  and  taken  her  place  without  once  looking 
up,  she  yet  knows  at  once  that  for  her  the  full  room  is 
empty.  Gradually  she  allows  her  eyes  to  steal  round  a 
glance,  in  confirmation  of  that  of  which  she  is  already 
sure.  Here  are  the  forms  and  faces  that  a  week's  fellow- 
eating  has  made  rather  more  familiar  to  her  than  her  own. 
Here  are  the  usual  vis-a-vis,  the  stock-broking  family : 
jocose  red  father,  aiming  side-hits  of  well-meant  pleas- 
antry at  herself  and  her  sister ;  full-blown,  hearty 
mother  ;  elaborately  elegant  daughter.  At  the  far  end 
of  the  board  a  few  insignificant  novelties.  That  is  all ! 
It  is  true  that  he  may  be  placed  at  the  other  table,  to 
which  her  back  is  turned  ;  but  this,  a  guilty  conscious- 
ness prevents  her  moving  her  head  to  ascertain.  Were 
he  there,  however,  it  is  certain  that  he  would  be  seen  by 
Sarah,  who  is  constantly  throwing  restless  glances  over 
her  shoulder  in  pursuit  of  the  object  of  her  own  interest. 

"  Here  they  come  ! "  she  cries,  jogging  her  sister's 
elbow  ;  "  here  they  all  come  ! — all  but  the  girl  in  red  ! 
all  but  Bellairs  !  Is  it  possible  that  they  can  be  out  in 
the  dinghy  still  ?  I  shall  complain  to  the  manager  !  " 

Belinda  smiles  faintly.  The  soup-plates  are  vanishing. 
It  is  evident  that  he  is  not  coming.  Her  compromising 
concession  has  been  made  in  vain.  It  was  her  part  to 
shun  him  ;  and  she  has  forced  him  to  shun  her. 

Probably  she  will  never  now  have  an  opportunity  of 
exculpating  herself,  even  to  the  extent  of  making  her 
lame  explanation  of  the  way  in  which  it  came  about. 

How  these  people  opposite  stare  ! 


406  BELINDA. 


She  has  begun  desperately  to  fan  herself  ;  but  the  Pro- 
fessor at  once  requests  her  to  stop,  as  the  current  of  air 
produced  by  her  fan  makes  him  sneeze. 

"  He  must  have  upset  her,  and  drowned  her  !  "  says 
Sarah,  in  her  sister's  ear.  "  I  hope  he  has  ;  it  would 
serve  her  quite  right ! —  G-od  bless  my  soul!" 

This  last  ejaculation  is  uttered  in  a  key  differing  so 
widely  from  the  cold-blooded  calm  of  her  former  aspi- 
rations, that  Belinda  gives  an  involuntary  start — a  start 
that  may  or  may  not  be  observed  by  him  who  has  just 
quietly  entered  the  room,  and  is  having  a  reversed  chair 
at  the  other  table  obsequiously  set  on  its  legs  for  him. 

"  Did  you  know  that  he  was  here  ?  "  asks  Sarah,  very 
low. 

But  Belinda  does  not  answer.  A  mad  relief — a  lunatic 
joy  is  choking  her  throat. 

"Did  you?"  repeats  the  other  urgently;  "is  it  pos- 
sible— " 

"  Do  you  think  that  I  sent  for  him  ?  "  says  Belinda,  in 
a  suffocating  whisper.  "  How  can  I  help  his  being  here  ?  " 

There  is  so  much  of  the  lion-at-bay  in  her  lightning 
eyes,  that  Sarah  wisely  desists  from  further  questioning. 

"  It  is  an  odd  coincidence  that  they  should  both  have 
turned  up  again  on  the  same  day,"  she  says  ;  her  mind 
reverting  to  the  truant  Bellairs. 

Happily  for  Belinda,  that  culprit  now  appears  on  the 
scene,  shortly  followed  by  his  companion  in  guilt ;  and 
for  the  rest  of  dinner  Miss  Churchill's  conversation  be- 
comes an  indignant  recitative,  a  running  commentary 
upon  their  actions. 

"  I  never  saw  such  a  brazen  pair  in  my  life  !  how  little 
he  thinks  that  I  can  see  him  !  Very  odd  that  he  has  not 
yet  caught  my  eye  !  Ah  !  there,  he  sees  me  !  '  How  do 
you  do  ?  how  do  you  do  ? '  Extraordinary  !  he  has  not 
turned  a  shade  paler ;  he  must  have  gone  to  the  devil 


BELINDA.  407 


altogether.  They  are  so  much  interested  :  they  are  ask- 
ing who  we  are,  and  whether  we  are  any  relation  to  the 
Duke  of  Marlborough.  He  is  swaggering  about  us,  and 
promising  to  introduce  us  after  dinner.  If  he  dares  !  " 

Belinda  is  well  content  to  allow  the  stream  of  solilo- 
quy beside  her  to  flow  on  unchecked.  A  silent  husband 
— ever  tussling  with  his  economico-sanitary  problem ;  a 
self-absorbed  sister — what  better  neighbors  could  she 
wish  for  ?  Even  the  family  opposite,  whose  notice  had 
before  annoyed  her,  immersed  in  good  cheer,  have  for- 
gotten her.  She  can  lean  back  unnoticed,  and  sun  her- 
self in  the  feeling — not  recognized  nor  formulated  enough 
to  constitute  a  reflection — that,  though  he  is  lost  to  her 
sight,  so  is  she  assuredly  not  to  his.  He  is  probably 
wondering  why  her  hair  is  cut  short. 

Does  he  think  it  an  improvement  ?  Possibly  it  may 
appear  to  him  in  a  high  degree  disfiguring.  It  is  the  first 
time  that  the  question  of  the  becomingness  or  unbecom- 
ingness  of  her  crop-head  has  presented  itself  to  Mrs. 
Forth's  mind.  She  is  not  one  of  those  happy  women 
whose  beauty  is  per  se,  and  to  themselves  as  good,  for 
pleasure  and  profit,  as  an  estate  in  the  three  per  cents. 
She  has  never  cared  for  it  except  as  it  affected  him.  Is 
she  much  disfigured  ?  She  lifts  one  hand  and  passes  it 
over  her  shining  tendrils,  as  if  to  obtain  an  answer  by 
touch.  In  so  doing,  and  in  consequence  of  the  small 
space  allotted  to  each  diner,  her  lifted  elbow  comes  into 
momentary  contact  with  her  husband's  sleeve. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  !  "  she  says,  starting. 

No  galvanic  shock  sent  with  uncomfortable  sense  of 
dislocation  along  bone  and  joint  could  have  brought  her 
down  more  suddenly  from  that  vision -world  through 
which,  happy  and  crop-headed,  she  has,  during  three 
courses,  been  walking. 

"  You  eat  nothing  !  "  says  the  Professor,  glancing  up- 


408  BELINDA. 


braidingly  at  her  empty  plate,  and  contrasting  resentfully 
in  his  mind  his  own  heroic  efforts  with  her  supine  and 
culpable  abstinence  ;  "  it  is  a  mere  farce — a  throwing 
away  of  money — to  set  good  food  before  you  !  " 

"  It  would  be  a  worse  throwing  away  of  it,  if  I  were 
to  gorge  myself  when  I  was  not  hungry,"  replies  she 
surlily  ;  and  with  that  their  conjugal  dialogue  ends. 

The  dinner,  too,  has  ended  by-and-by.  The  oldest 
inhabitant  has  given  vent  to  his  second  grace  ;  and  there 
is  a  rustling  and  streaming  through  the  passage  into"  the 
hall,  and  out  upon  gras-plat  and  pier. 

Usually  the  Churchill  party  do  not  participate  in  this 
latter  outward  movement.  To  watch  the  humors  of  the 
company  from  the  privacy  of  their  sitting-room  window 
has,  on  previous  evenings,  seemed  to  them  better  than 
mingling  with  them.  But  to-night  Belinda  lingers.  She 
must  speak  to  him.  In  justice  to  herself,  to  him,  to  her 
husband  even,  she  must  speak  to  him.  It  would  be  im- 
possible to  leave  him  in  that  misapprehension  about  her, 
under  which  he  must  necessarily  now  be  lying. 

"  Are  you  going  out  ?  "  asks  Sarah,  with  a  sharp  look 
in  her  sister's  agitated  face.  "  So  will  I.  She  has  actu- 
ally had  the  bad  taste  to  whip  him  off  to  their  balcony 
again.  After  all,  they  were  not  in  the  least  anxious  to  be 
introduced  to  us.  Pr — r  ! "  (shivering),  "  it  is  cold  ;  I 
will  go  and  fetch  my  little  French  hood  ;  if  that  will  not 
bring  him  down,  nothing  will ! " 

She  runs  off,  and  Belinda,  with  as  composed  an  air  as 
she  can  muster,  strolls  toward  the  pier,  and,  leaning  her 
arms  upon  the  rail,  looks  down  into  the  troubled  lake 
water.  It  is  a  chill  and  unsummerlike  night ;  raw-aired 
and  boisterous.  The  clouds  hug  the  hills  and  smother 
the  struggling  moon.  Many  people,  feeling  the  nipping 
breeze,  have  hastened  in-doors  again.  Others  come  out, 
fortified  by  Newmarket  coats  or  fur  capes.  How  can  they 


BELINDA.  409 


find  it  cold  ?  To  her  it  seems  to  be  torrid.  Her  eyes 
are  fixed  upon  the  angry  little  waves,  sucking,  and  fight- 
ing, and  dashing  themselves  against  jetty  and  shore  ;  and 
the  steps  of  the  promenading,  cigarette-smoking,  chatting 
idlers,  pass  to  and  fro  behind  her.  They  do  not  all  pass 
her.  Two  feet  pause  hesitatingly  beside  her. 

"  Did  you  get  my  note  ?  " 

His  face  may  be  older  than  it  was,  and  his  handwriting 
steadier,  but  at  all  events  his  voice  trembles  quite  as  much 
as  ever  it  did.  What  sense  is  there  in  being  glad  at  that  ? 
And  yet  she  is  glad. 

"  Yes,"  she  answers  whisperingly,  neither  looking  up, 
nor  expressing  any  surprise  at  his  presence,  nor  at  his 
omitting  all  the  forms  of  conventional  greeting  ;  "  but 
you  must  not  draw  any  inference  from  my  being  here." 

She  pauses  ;  but,  except  that  she  hears  his  quick 
breathing  beside  her,  he  may  be  gone  :  in  so  entire  a  si- 
lence does  he  await  her  explanation. 

"  My — my — Mr.  Forth  insisted  upon  my  dining,"  she 
says,  growing  burning  red  at  what  she  feels  must  appear 
the  wretched  inadequacy  of  this  explanation.  "  It — it — 
is  a  very  prosaic  reason,"  breaking  into  a  nervous  laugh, 
"  but  he  did  not  wish  my  dinner  to  be  wasted  ! " 

Still  silence.  Has  he  nothing  to  say  ?  not  even  one 
poor  word  of  pleasure  ?  Probably  he  is  nerving  himself 
up  to  exact  an  answer  to  that  question  of  his,  which  she 
has  virtually  never  answered.  Probably  he  is  going — oh, 
barbarous  ! — to  throw  the  decision  again  upon  her.  But 
perhaps  he  has  learned,  within  the  last  hour,  to  let  sleep- 
ing dogs  lie.  At  all  events,  when  his  speech  comes,  it  is 
not  the  one  she  had  dreaded  to  hear. 

"You  have  been  ill?" 

"  You  judge  by  my  hair,  I  suppose,"  replies  she,  laugh- 
ing again  ;  "  otherwise,  as  Mr.  Forth  says,  it  would  cer- 
tainly never  occur  to  any  one  that  I  was  an  invalid." 

18 


410  BELINDA. 


It  is  the  second  time  within  two  minutes  that  she  has 
quoted  her  husband.  Does  she  feel  a  sort  of  chaperonage 
in  his  very  name  ?  At  that  name  a  slight  shudder  passes 
over  Rivers's  frame. 

"  But  you  have  been  ill  ?  " 

"  Nothing  interesting,"  she  says,  with  a  cynical  shrug  ; 
"  no  brain-fever,  or  charming  hectic.  I  simply — a  very 
common  complaint  in  Oxbridge,  you  know — broke  down 
from  overwork.  I  always  tell  every  one  I  broke  down 
from  overwork  ;  it  sounds  so  well." 

In  his  ears,  possibly,  it  does  not  sound  so  well. 

"  Overwork!"  he  repeats,  shocked.  "Has  your — 
who  has  been  overworking  you  ?  " 

"  Nobody  ;  I  myself  !  "  replies  she,  quoting  Desde- 
mona,  and  with  about  as  much  truth  in  her  speech  as 
there  was  in  that  of  the  Moor's  wife.  How  loud  and 
restless  is  the  waves'  wash  beneath  them  !  "  And  you  ?  " 
she  says  softly ;  "  how  has  it  been  with  you  ?  At  all 
events,"  with  a  melancholy  smile,  "however  hard  you 
may  have  been  working,  you  have  not  broken  down  !  " 

"  No,"  he  answers,  with  a  sort  of  humility,  as  if  he 
were  ashamed  of  having  to  make  the  admission  ;  "I 
have  not  broken  down." 

"  It  would  take  a  great  deal  to  break  you  down,"  she 
says,  glancing  at  him  with  a  sort  of  reproach  for  his 
health  and  vigor  ;  "  and  yet,  in  point  of  fact,  men  die 
more  easily  than  women  ;  you  die  when  you  do  not  want 
to  die,  and  we  can  not  die  when  we  wish  :  that  is  about 
the  state  of  the  case  in  this  best  of  all  possible  worlds." 

She  has  raised  herself  from  her  bent  posture,  and  has 
lifted  that  face,  whose  character  seems  to  be  changed 
and  gentled  by  her  babyish  hair,  to  the  sky.  What 
strange  clouds,  like  giant  curls  and  columns  of  sacrificial 
smoke  from  the  altar  of  some  dark  god  !  and  the  bright, 
gibbous  moon  shouldering  her  way  through  a  sullen  pile 


BELINDA.  411 


before  she  can  reach  a  clear  sky-space,  and  make  the  dark 
more  chastely  splendid.  How  few  people  are  left  upon 
the  pier  !  By  what  right  is  she  left  ?  They  have  closed 
the  windows  of  her  grandmother's  sitting-room.  She  can 
see  the  silhouette  of  Mrs.  Churchill's  cap  upon  the  blind. 
Why  is  not  her  own  silhouette  there  too  ?  Alas  !  in  five 
minutes  it  must  be  ! 

"  Do  you  wish  to  die  ?  "  he  says,  in  a  shaken,  low 
voice. 

(Can  this  woman  desire  that  the  world  should  be  made 
dark  by  her  extinction  ?) 

"Yes,"  she  answers  dreamily.  "No — yes — on  condi- 
tion that  I  might  come  back  if  I  found  it  even  worse  than 
this  ;  and  you  f  "  looking  at  him  with  a  moonlit  waver- 
ing smile — "  but  no  ;  you  would  not  leave  your  '  rabble,' 
and  your  patent.  By-the-by,  how  is  the  patent  ?  is  it 
taken  out  yet  ?  " 

"  The  patent !  "  he  cries,  breaking  into  a  sudden,  un- 
steady, tender  laugh  ;  "  is  it  possible  that  you  remember 
about  the  patent  ?  " 

"  Do  I  remember  it  ?  "  returns  she,  in  a  kind  of  scorn  ; 
"  then  if  I  had  taken  out  a  patent,  you  would  not  have 
remembered  it  ?  " 

"  It  is  an  old  story  now,"  he  answers,  still  with  that 
tremulous,  unglad  laugh  ;  "it  was  taken  out  some  months 
ago.  Our  firm  has  adopted  it  with  success  ;  others  have 
followed  their  example,  and — " 

"  And  you  are  on  the  high-road  to  fortune,"  interrupts 
she,  with  a  quivering  lip  ;  "  to  the  gilt  coach  and  the 
Lord  Mayor's  gown.  I  have  always  told  you  that  you 
would  end  by  being  Lord  Mayor  !  Yes,"  dragging  out 
the  slow  syllables  one  after  another, "  on  the  high-road  to 
fortune." 

"  On  the  high-road  to  fortune  ! "  repeats  he  after  her, 
with  something  not  unlike  a  sob  in  his  voice  ;  "  so  you 


412  BELINDA. 


used  to  tell  me  at  Oxbridge  ;  is  it  such  a  good  joke  that 
it  is  worth  repeating  ?  " 

There  is  not  a  soul  remaining  on  the  pier  beside  them- 
selves. Even  Mrs.  Churchill's  shadow  has  disappeared 
from  the  blind.  It  is  clear  that  she  has  had  the  fire  lit, 
and  has  drawn  up  her  chair  to  it.  Has  no  one,  then,  a 
glance  for  the  black  and  silver  water  ?  for  these  great 
cloud-bulks,  and  this  victorious  maiden  moon  ?  Not  a 
soul !  It  is  all  their  own,  his  and  hers  !  all  the  jiight's 
cold,  steely  splendor  !  all  the  wind's  wintry  song,  and  the 
waves'  loud  lap  !  Surely  their  voices  are  no  sadder  than 
his — his,  with  that  sob  in  it !  How  easily  she  could  sob 
too  !  Perhaps  her  spirits  are  weakened  by  recent  sick- 
ness. 

"  There  is  no  pleasing  you  !  "  she  says,  half  hysteri- 
cally ;  "  what  would  you  have  ?  " 

"  What  would  I  have  ?  "  cries  a  high,  matter-of-fact 
voice,  striking  suddenly  in  ;  "  why,  I  would  have  a  warm- 
ing-pan, and  a  fur  coat,  and  some  mulled  claret  :  that  is 
what  I  would  have. — Oh,  it  is  you,  is  it  ?  "  with  a  very 
slight  and  cursory  recognition  of  Mrs.  Forth's  companion. 
— "  Belinda,  are  you  quite  out  of  your  senses  ?  " 

There  is  something  in  Miss  Churchill's  tone,  and  in 
the  decision  of  the  way  in  which  she  has  put  her  arm 
under  her  sister's,  and  is  leading  her  away,  that  it  would 
require  a  clearer  conscience  than  Belinda's  to  resist. 

"I — I — was  waiting  for  you,"  she  stammers. 

"And  David  was  helping  you?  Well" — shrugging 
her  shoulders,  and  relapsing  into  a  lighter  tone — "  I  was 
detained  ;  he  waylaid  me  on  the  landing  ;  I  never  knew 
that  little  capote  fail.  He  has  been  telling  me  about 
them  ;  she  plays  the  banjo  :  that  seems  the  great  feature  ! 
I  will  play  the  banjo  too  !  " 


BELINDA.  413 


CHAPTER  III. 

ALTHOUGH  there  may  be  something  in  Professor 
Forth's  remark  that  no  one,  not  let  into  the  secret,  could 
now  conjecture  his  wife's  invalidhood,  yet,  by  right  of 
that  invalidhood,  she  has  hitherto  been  excluded  from 
the  longer  excursions  made  by  her  grandmother  and  sis- 
ter in  the  neighborhood,  as  being  too  severe  a  tax  upon 
her  not  yet  completely  restored  powers.  But  on  the 
morning  succeeding  her  lake-side  colloquy,  Mrs.  Forth  is, 
it  appears,  expected  to  resume  the  habits  of  health. 

"I  must  request  your  kind  chaperonage,"  says  Miss 
Churchill,  running  to  meet  her  sister,  as  that  sister  enters 
Mrs.  Churchill's  sitting-room  after  breakfast,  and  lifting 
a  cheek  as  fresh  and  sweet  as  soap  and  water,  health  and 
jollity,  can  make  it  to  hers.  "  Granny  has  struck  work, 
as  she  has  frequently  done  before  ;  she  has  always  in  her 
heart  hated  the  picturesque,  and  to-day  I  have  induced 
her  to  own  it — eh,  granny  ?  As  for  me,  for  reasons  best 
known  to  myself,  I  am  going  to  spend  a  long  and  happy 
day  at  Coniston  ;  and  I  see  no  earthly  reason  why  you 
should  not  accompany  me." 

By  the  extreme  positiveness  of  her  tone,  and  deter- 
mination of  her  eye,  it  may  be  inferred  that  Sarah  looks 
for  a  demurrer  to  this  proposition.  If  such  comes,  it 
comes  in  silence. 

"  You  had  much  better  say  '  yes,' "  pursues  Miss 
Churchill  warmly  ;  "  if  you  do  not,  and  you  continue  to 
look  as  robust  as  you  do  now,  you  will  certainly  be  tied  by 
the  leg  again  to  Menander  before  you  can  draw  breath  !  " 

Belinda  laughs,  a  little  unnaturally. 

"  That  shows  how  little  you  know  about  it ;  Menan- 
der has  been  three  months  before  the  public." 

"  Well,  no  doubt  he  has  left  plenty  of  little  brothers 
behind  him,"  rejoins  Sarah  lightly  ;  "  what  do  you  say  ?  " 


4:14:  BELINDA. 


"  Do  you  think  it  is  safe  to  venture  ?  "  replies  Belinda, 
walking  to  the  window,  and  pointing  in  faint  objection  to 
the  blind  vapors  that  feel  about  the  mountain-crests  ;  "  do 
not  you  think  that  the  weather  looks  rather  uncertain  ?  " 

"  Does  it  ever  look  anything  else  ? "  retorts  Sarah 
dryly.  "  Come,  quick  !  *  yes '  or  '  no  '  ?  " 

"  I  will  ask  Mr.  Forth  if  he  can  spare  me,"  says  Be- 
linda reluctantly,  leaving  the  room  with  lagging  steps. 

"  Tell  him  that  he  shall  be  put  to  no  expense  ;  that 
you  shall  not  even  pay  the  turnpikes,"  cries  Sarah  saucily 
after  her. 

She  returns  presently  with  still  more  lagging  steps. 

"Well?" 

"  He  has  no  objection,"  answers  Mrs.  Forth,  slackly, 
sitting  down,  and  letting  her  arms  drop  depressedly  be- 
side her. 

"  You  tried  to  make  him  forbid  you,  and  he  would 
not,"  cries  Sarah,  sharply,  and  with  a  pungent  laugh. 

"  You  are  really  too  clever,"  replies  Belinda,  redden- 
ing, and  with  a  petulance  which  shows  that  this  shaft  has 
gone  home  ;  "  you  have  got  your  own  way  ;  you  always 
get  your  own  way.  I  am  going  with  you  ;  let  us  hear  no 
more  about  it." 

The  carriage  is  at  the  door,  and  a  few  such  idlers  as 
mostly  watch  the  arrival  and  departure  of  each  coming 
and  going  vehicle,  hang  about  it.  Sarah  is  already  seated, 
and  is  exchanging  such  chastened  and  diluted  gallantries 
as  the  publicity  of  the  situation  will  admit,  with  some 
one  hanging  over  the  balcony  overhead.  Belinda  has 
purposely  loitered  over  her  dressing,  in  the  hope  that 
some  opportune  mountain  storm  may  even  yet  intervene 
to  hinder  the  execution  of  the,  to  her,  so  distasteful  pro- 
ject. 

But  in  vain.  The  perverse  and  hostile  sky  is,  all  too 
obviously,  clearing.  As  she  issues  from  the  hall,  she 


BELINDA.  415 


glances  furtively  to  right  and  left.    Yes,  he  is  here  !    His 
voice,  which  but  for  Sarah's  manoeuvring  might   have 
been  all  day  in  her  happy  ears,  is  addressing  her. 
"  You  are  going  out  ?  " 

(Do  they  all  hear,  as  plainly  as  she  does,  the  blank 
disappointment  and  discomfiture  of  his  tone  ?) 

"Yes,"  she  answers,  lifting  for  an  instant  her  eyes 
with  an  instinct  of  ungovernable  plain tiveness  to  his  ; 
"  for  the  day  !  on  a  pleasure-trip  !  Wish  me  joy  !  " 

She  has  taken  her  seat,  and,  just  as  they  are  setting 
off,  she  leans  forward,  and  addressing  the  driver,  repeats 
in  a  peculiarly  clear  and  distinct  voice  that  direction 
which  has  already  been  given  him,  "  To  Coniston  !  " 

"  You  are  determined  that  there  shall  be  no  mistake  as 
to  our  destination,  I  see,"  says  Sarah,  sarcastically. 

Belinda's  chest  heaves. 

"  I  thought  that  you  might  like  Mr.  Bellairs  to  know," 
she  answers,  ironically.  "  By-the-by,  who  is  to  keep 
watch  and  ward  over  him  in  your  absence  ?  " 

"  I  have  received  private  information  that  they  all 
mean  to  come  to  Coniston  too,"  replies  Sarah,  tranquilly. 
"  I  thought  I  would  be  beforehand  with  them  ! — a  poor 
project,  but  mine  own  !  " 

Away  they  go  from  the  wind-freshened  lake,  whose 
waves  are  running  riot  in  the  sun  ;  while,  as  they  pass 
along,  the  clouds  roll  up  and  up  from  fell  and  scaw  and 
nab,  leaving  only  a  lawny  kerchief  here  and  there  about 
their  necks  ;  as  though  loath  all  at  once  to  desert  them. 
And,  by-and-by,  kerchief  and  veil  are  swept  away  too, 
and  the  hills  are  free. 

Through  loveliest  pasture-fields,  crowded  with  great 
bluebells  and  vetches,  and  meadow-sweet  that  smells  of 
almonds  ;  by  meadows  where  women  are  tossing  the  late 
hay,  beside  the  laughing  Rotha  ;  under  Loughrigg  and 
over  chattering  Brathay's  gray  stone  bridge  they  go.  Up 


416  BELINDA. 


and  up  they  climb  ;  between  the  weather-painted  walls, 
with  their  lavish  ferns  and  their  crannied  flowers  ;  till  at 
the  top  of  the  long  ascent  they  pause  to  breathe  the 
horses,  and  look  back. 

Fair  mountain-wonders,  now  again  conversing  with 
the  clouds  ;  and  yet  lit  on  your  bare  flanks  by  the  sun  : 
Red  Screes,  Fairfield,  Wansfell  Pike,  with  your  pointed 
head !  to  which  of  you  shall  we  give  crown  and  scepter, 
as  Queen-hill,  in  this  your  morning  glory  ?  For  a  while 
they  both  look  in  silence.  Then  : 

"  It  seems  a  pity  that  we  are  not  in  the  least  enjoying 
ourselves,"  says  Sarah,  regretfully. 

Belinda's  heart  gives  a  passionate  assent,  though  her 
lips  are  closed.  Is  not  life  full  of  such  pities  ?  of  exqui- 
site spread  feasts,  and  gagged  mouths  that  are  not  allowed 
to  taste  them  ?  With  what  an  agony  of  pleasure  would 
she  be  looking  at  these  curly  mists  and  shining  shoulders  ; 
at  these  heavenly  becks,  rain-swollen  in  their  noisy  mirth, 
dashing  in  happy  bounds  down  the  hill-sides,  if  only — if 
only  !  And  this  is  such  an  easy,  probable  "  if,"  too  ! 

"If  you  could  but  think  it,  you  know,"  continues 
Miss  Churchill,  turning  in  calm  reasoning  to  her  sister, 
"  I  am  really  much  better  company  than  David  ;  and  it 
is  no  great  stretch  of  imagination  to  say  that  you  are 
not  much  duller  than  Bellairs,  eh  ?  " 

But  Belinda  is  still  staring,  in  sullen,  grudging  mis- 
ery at  the  wasted  loveliness  before  her. 

"  Shall  we  try  to  pretend,  at  all  events,  that  we  like 
it  ?  "  says  Sarah  persuasively.  "  It  would  be  more  to  our 
credit ;  I  think  I  could,  if  you  could." 

But  Mrs.  Forth  is  unable  to  promise  even  thus  much. 

"  You  can  not  do  it  ?  "  says  Sarah  leniently  ;  "  well,  I 
am  the  last  person  who  have  any  right  to  blame  you. 
Personally  I  have  never  cared  for  a  landscape  without 
figures  in  the  foreground  ! " 


BELINDA.  417 


But,  as  time  goes  on,  this  seems  to  be  the  species  of 
landscape  to  which  Miss  Churchill  is  to-day  to  be  con- 
demned. Although  Coniston  has  been  long  ago  reached, 
luncheon  eaten,  and  several  coaches  and  char-d-bancs 
driven  up  and  unloaded,  yet  is  there  no  sign  of  the  ap- 
pearance of  any  one  of  the  ornamental  foreground  figures 
for  which  she  had  confidently  looked. 

"  Beaten  by  a  banjo  !  "  says  she  tragically  ;  "  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  banjo  I  should  have  walked  away  from 
her.  I  will  never  go  anywhere  without  a  banjo  again  ! " 

Belinda  laughs  grimly.     "  I  would  not  !  " 

"  I  suppose  there  must  be  some  tiresome  sight  to  be 
seen  here,"  says  Sarah,  yawning  ;  "it  would  never  do  if 
they  found  out  that  we  had  not  seen  it  :  not  the  lake — 
no  !  I  could  not  bear  that ;  it  would  remind  me  of  the 
dinghy  !  What  did  the  waiter  tell  us  ?  copper-mines  and 
a  waterfall  ?  Come,  do  look  a  little  livelier,  and  brace 
your  mind  to  copper-mines  and  a  waterfall ! " 

They  set  out  dispiritedly,  but  before  they  have  gone 
five  yards — 

"  I  will  leave  word  which  way  we  have  gone,"  cries 
Sarah  brightening,  "  in  case  any  one  asks  for  us." 

"  A  most  unnecessary  precaution  !  "  replies  Belinda, 
morosely. 

A  walk  undertaken  in  such  a  spirit  is  not  likely  to  be 
productive  of  any  very  acute  enjoyment. 

"We  are  to  turn  to  the  right  when  we  reach  the 
Black  Bull  I "  says  Sarah  gloomily  ;  "  I  wonder  what 
would  happen  if  we  turned  to  the  left  ?  " 

But  they  have  not  the  energy  even  to  make  this  ex- 
periment. They  have  passed  village  and  whitewashed 
church,  and  asking  their  way  of  the  civil  villagers,  pres- 
ently find  themselves  climbing  a  mountain  road,  with  a 
little  gay  river  frisking  over  its  worn  bowlder-stones  on 
their  right,  and  a  green  fell  on  their  left.  Ere  long  the 


418  BELINDA. 


road  leaves  the  bright  beck,  and  climbs  higher  than  it ; 
and  trees  interpose  a  leafy  shield  between  them  and  their 
noisy  friend.  But  it  calls  to  them  from  beneath  :  "  I  am 
here ;  you  will  find  me  soon  again."  And  so  they  do. 
For  by-and-by  the  road  swerves  to  the  right,  and  they  are 
once  more  free  from  the  envious  sycamores  and  mountain 
ashes,  with  their  red  rosaries,  and  are  standing  on  a  rough 
stone  mortarless  bridge  with  parapet  broken  down,  and 
beneath  them  the  stream  plunges  in  a  little  storm  of  foam. 
Is  this  the  waterfall  ?  They  do  not  know  ;  they  do  not 
much  care.  It  is  a  little  waterfall,  even  if  it  be  not  the 
one  in  search  of  which  they  have  been  sent. 

"  My  cup  is  full !  "  says  Sarah,  sitting  resolutely  down. 
"  I  am  hot ;  I  have  not  a  leg  to  stand  upon  ;  my  pretty 
project  has  avortb ;  if  Niagara  were  round  the  corner  I 
would  not  go  to  look  at  it.  Oh,  why  did  I  leave  my 
granny  ?  dear  granny  !  how  she  would  have  hated  this  !  " 

"  Even  more  than  you  do  ?  "  asks  Belinda,  cynically. 

Mrs.  Forth  is  still  standing,  her  eyes  riveted  on  the 
little  cascade,  and  her  heart  repeating  over  and  over  to 
itself  that  bitter  morning  plaint :  "  How  pleasant !  if  only 
—if  only— what  ?  " 

"  Belinda  ! "  says  her  sister,  after  a  while,  in  a  voice 
of  cautious  triumph,  "do  you  see  anything  moving  be- 
tween the  trees  ?  yes  ?  I  thought  so  !  A  more  direct 
answer  to  prayer  I  have  seldom  heard  of  !  "  Then,  with 
an  abrupt  change  of  tone  to  one  of  sharp  and  real  annoy- 
ance, "If  he  has  not  brought  that  eternal  David  with 
him!" 

"  Are  you  going  to  see  the  copper-mines  ?  "  says  Miss 
Churchill,  demurely,  a  couple  of  minutes  later,  addressing 
the  new  arrivals  ;  "  so  were  we.  But  we  have  broken 
down ;  perhaps  you  will  tell  us  about  them  this  even- 
ing!" 


BELINDA.  419 


"  We  never  heard  that  there  were  any,"  replies  Bel- 
lairs,  with  an  unvarnished  boyish  bluntness.  "  We  came 
to  look  for  you  ;  we  understood  that  you  had  left  word." 

For  once  in  her  life  Sarah  looks  a  shade  foolish. 

Belinda,  still  standing,  has  remained  looking,  as  if  in 
absorption,  at  the  water  fall.  It  is  not  much  of  a  one,  after 
all.  Its  noise  does  not  deafen  you  ;  its  spray  does  not 
drench  you  ;  it  is  but  a  few  feet  that  it  plunges.  But 
how  snowy-clean  is  its  foam  !  How  agilely  it  springs 
down  !  How  pleasant  its  voice  !  Like  the  voice  of  Un- 
dine calling  to  her  false  Huldbrand  !  What  wondrous 
green  ferns  lip  its  waters  ! 

"  You  said,  '  To  Coniston  ! ' "  This  is  the  murmur 
that  comes  to  Belinda's  ear.  Is  it  the  brook  that  utters 
it  ?  She  turns  her  head  sharply  away  ;  but  not  before 
he  has  seen  that  the  rowan-berries  are  scarcely  redder 
than  she. 

And  then  (neither  inviting,  nor  being  invited)  they 
saunter  away  together,  as  if  they  would  fain  follow  the 
stream  to  its  springs  in  the  mountain-lap.  At  least,  they 
may  lend  it  their  company  for  a  little  while.  Almost  in 
silence  they  linger  along,  and  gravely  watch  its  lovely 
antics,  as,  in  little  cataracts  and  water-breaks  and  jumps, 
it  sings  and  dances  along  in  its  jubilant  old  age  (for  how 
many  centuries  has  it  sung  and  capered  ?)  that  is  so  like 
youth ! 

"  I  wish  I  could  think  that  I  should  wear  as  well ! " 
said  Mrs.  Forth,  with  an  excited  laugh,  sitting  down  on 
a  gray  stone  beside  the  road  that  leads  up  to  the  copper- 
mines. 

The  sun  has  gone  for  a  while,  and  the  fells  look  se- 
rious and  care-worn.  They  are  old,  too,  like  the  brook  ; 
but  they  scarcely  carry  their  years  so  well.  He  has 
thrown  himself  at  her  feet,  that  favorite  symbolic  atti- 
tude of  his — body  and  soul,  past,  present,  and  future — is 


420  BELINDA. 


not  he  always  there  ?  In  their  ears  is  the  booming  of  the 
mountain  bees,  and  the  rivulet's  warble.  There  is  no 
longer  an  "if  "I 

"  How  long  are  you  going  to  stay  at  Lowood  ?  "  she 
asks  abruptly. 

She  had  not  meant  to  put  the  question,  and  bitterly 
regrets  it  when  it  is  pronounced  ;  but  it  forces  itself  out, 
in  spite  of  her. 

"  I  shall  go  when  you  tell  me." 

Her  forehead  contracts  with  a  furrow  of  angry  pain. 

"  You  have  no  right  to  throw  the  decision  upon  me," 
she  answers  indignantly  ;  "  it  is  ungenerous.  Why,  are 
not  you  perfectly  well  able  to  judge  for  yourself  ?  " 

"Because — "  he  answers,  looking  full  at  her,  and 
speaking  steadily,  though  very  low,  "because  I  broke 
down  once  ;  what  security  have  I  that  I  should  not  break 
down  again  ?  " 

Her  eyes  drop,  and  now  the  rowan-berries  claim  no 
kinship  with  her  cheeks. 

"  That  was  my  fault !  "  she  answers  faintly,  turning 
dead-white. 

"  No  !  "  he  says  slowly,  yet  with  agitation,  "  it  was 
not !  Perhaps  your  being  late  that  day  may  have  accel- 
erated it ;  but  it  would  have  come  anyhow,"  with  rising 
passion.  "  It  would  have  come  anyhow ;  how  could  it 
help  coming  ?  When  I  am  with  you,"  speaking  with  a 
sort  of  despair,  "  how  can  it  ever  help  coming  ?  " 

Her  hot  fingers  pick  the  cool  mountain  daisies. 

"  You  must  do  as  you  think  best !  "  she  murmurs,  half 
in  tears. 

How  solemnly  the  hills  are  listening  !  The  higher 
ones,  indeed,  are  out  of  sight ;  so  f orwardly  have  grim 
Coniston  Old  Man's  younger  brothers  thrust  themselves 
before  him. 

From  the  bridge  come   sounds  of  rapturous,  manly 


BELINDA.  421 


merriment,  which  tell  how  far  ahead  of  the  banjo  and  its 
owner  Sarah's  tongue  is  triumphantly  carrying  her. 

Rivers  has  raised  himself  into  a  sitting  posture,  and  in 
his  hand  he  is  bruising  and  crushing  a  bit  of  the  dwarf 
bracken  that  grows  beside  them. 

"  You — you  would  give  me  another  chance,  then  ?  " 
he  says,  indistinctly  ;  "  you  —  you  would  let  me  try 
again  ?  " 

Is  there  any  slightest  doubt  as  to  what  her  answer 
should  be  ?  and  yet  she  hesitates. 

"  I — I — have  so  few  friends,"  she  answers,  as  if  apolo- 
getically and  sobbing  ;  "  as  I  have  always  told  you,  I  do 
not  know  how  to  make  friends  !  my  life  is  so  empty,  and 
now  that  I  am  obviously  perfectly  recovered,"  with  a  sort 
of  exasperation,  "  will  no  doubt  be  so  long  !  You  must 
do  as  you  think  best !  " 

He  looks  at  her  in  a  dumb  agony  for  fully  a  hundred 
heart-beats.  Does  she  know  what  she  is  asking  of  him  ? 
In  her  divine  high  innocence  she  does  not  understand.  It 
is  for  him  to  understand  for  her  !  Her  head  is  bent,  and 
upon  her  white  hands  and  whiter  daisies  one  slow  tear 
splashes.  Until  that  tear  it  was  possible  to  him  !  Until 
that  tear  ! 

"  I  must  do  as  I  think  best  ?  "  he  cries  in  passionate 
excitement,  wholly  carried  away  ;  "  is  that  what  you  tell 
me  ?  Then  I  think  best  to  stay  !  The  case  is  changed 
— it  is  not  what  it  was  then  :  I  was  taken  by  surprise.  I 
was  off  my  guard  ! — forewarned,  forearmed,  you  know  ! 
Yes,  it  is  quite  safe  now  !  " 

"  But  is  it  ?  "  she  says,  shuddering,  too  late  terrified 
by  the  wildness  of  his  look  and  the  mad  triumph  of  his 
eyes  ;  "  is  it  ?  " 

Is  it  indeed  ?  There  has  been  a  week  in  which  to  an- 
swer this  question. 


422  BELINDA. 


"  It  is  putting  one  into  such  a  disagreeable  position  ! " 
says  Mrs.  Churchill,  pettishly. 

The  hour  is  the  immediately  after  breakfast  one  ;  and 
she  is  sitting  at  the  table,  an  open  writing-case  before  her, 
papers  and  an  hotel  bill  spread  around.  Her  usual  equa- 
ble brow  is  ruffled.  The  manager  of  the  hotel  has  just 
left  the  room. 

"  Being  apparently  all  of  the  same  party,  it  is  so  dif- 
ficult to  explain  that  we  are  not  responsible  for- his  eccen- 
tricities," continues  Mrs.  Churchill  in  a  tone  of  growing 
annoyance. 

"  Heaven  has  so  obviously  framed  you  for  each  other, 
that  they  can  not  disabuse  themselves  of  the  idea  that  you 
are  husband  and  wife,"  says  Sarah  in  an  amused  voice 
from  the  window.  "  I  saw  incredulity  in  the  manager's 
eye  when  you  were  laboriously  explaining  that  he  was 
your  grandson-in-law  ;  he  wondered  why,  if  you  must 
tell  a  lie,  you  should  tell  such  a  bad  one  !  " 

"  I  fancy  that  there  is  not  the  most  paltry  item  of  his 
bill  over  which  he  does  not  haggle,"  says  Mrs.  Churchill, 
indignantly.  "  It  is  too  petty  !  it  makes  one  quite  hot ! 
I  am  sure  that  they  would  gladly  pay  him  to  go  away  ! 
Of  course  it  will  end  in  his  driving  us  off  ! — O  Belinda, 
my  dear,  are  you  there  ?  I  am  sure  I  beg  your  pardon  ; 
but  what  is  said  can  not  be  unsaid,  and  you  really  come 
into  the  room  in  such  a  creep-mouse  way  that  one  does 
not  know  whether  you  are  in  it  or  not !  " 

"  It  is  not  of  the  least  consequence,"  replies  Belinda, 
though  her  face  burns.  "I  will  certainly  try  to  make 
more  noise  next  time  ;  and,  for  the  present,  perhaps  I  am 
best  away." 

As  she  speaks  she  walks  to  the  door,  opens  it,  and 
closes  it  gently  behind  her ;  then  deliberately  mounts 
the  stairs  to  her  husband's  attic.  His  occupation  seems 
to  be  of  somewhat  the  same  nature  as  her  grand- 


BELINDA.  423 


mother's.  At  least  before  him,  too,  papers  and  a  bill  are 
spread. 

"  I  was  on  the  point  of  summoning  you  to  my  aid,"  he 
says,  looking  up  as  she  enters  ;  "  I  wished  to  consult  you 
as  to  several  of  these  items,"  indicating  them  with  his 
long,  thin  forefinger,  "of  which  personally  I  have  no 
knowledge  whatever.  '  A  couple  of  stamps  on  the  15th, 
a  bottle  of  Apollinaris  "water  on  the  18th,  envelopes  on 
the  19th.'  May  I  ask  whether  these  entries  are  correct,  or 
whether  they  are  due  to  carelessness  on  the  part  of  the 
manager  ?  in  which  case  I  shall  of  course  at  once  take 
him  to  task  for  such  culpable  oversight." 

"  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  is  all  right,"  still  with  that 
burning  in  her  face  ;  "  what  can  it  matter  ?  " 

"In  my  opinion  it  matters  extremely,"  replies  he, 
sharply ;  "  your  memory  can,  at  all  events,"  again  re- 
ferring to  the  bill,  "go  back  so  far  as  yesterday?  you 
can  at  least  inform  me  whether  or  not  you  ordered  a  bot- 
tle of  seltzer- water  yesterday  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  replies  she,  defiantly  shrugging  her  shoulders 
— "  two,  three,  half  a  dozen  !  " 

He  looks  at  her  with  a  not  altogether  ill-founded  ex- 
asperation. 

"  You  are  obviously  resolved,  for  some  unexplained 
reason,  to  thwart  my  purpose,"  he  says,  slowly  ;  "  but  it  is 
of  the  less  consequence,  since  I  have  made  up  my  mind  at 
once  to  leave  this  place,  where  the  scale  of  expenditure 
into  which  I  am  led— probably  owing  to  a  mistaken  no- 
tion of  my  connection  with  your  grandmother — is  indu- 
bitably higher  than  I  was  taught  to  expect." 

She  has  been  looking  straight  before  her,  with  a  dogged 
insouciance  ;  but  at  the  mention  of  his  purpose  of  depart- 
ure that  look  vanishes,  and  her  cheeks  blanch. 

"  You  mean  to  leave  this  place  ?  "  she  says,  in  a  low 
voice  ;  "  and  yet,"  with  irony,  "  wherever  you  go  you 


424  BELINDA. 


will  have  to  pay  for  the  postage-stamps  I  buy  and  the 
Apollinaris  water  I  drink." 

"  It  is  not  merely  a  question  of  expense/'  rejoins  he, 
coloring  faintly  at  her  tone  ;  "  I  have  daily  more  reason 
to  be  convinced  that  the  air  of  this  place  does  not  suit 
me  ;  I  have  slept  worse,  and  my  palpitations  have  been 
sensibly  severer,  since  my  arrival.  I  am  aware  that  you 
always  assume  a  look  of  incredulity  when  I  allude  to  my 
maladies." 

"Do  I  ?  "  she  answers,  with  a  preoccupied  air,  as  if 
she  were  not  thinking  of  what  she  was  saying.  "  I  beg 
your  pardon  ;  I  did  not  mean  it." 

"I  have  written  to  engage  rooms  for  to-morrow  at 
the  Lodore  Hotel,  at  the  head  of  Derwentwater  ;  a 
coach  starts  from  here  at  eleven  o'clock  in  the  forenoon, 
and—" 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  we  are  to  go — to  leave  this 
place — to-morrow  ?  "  she  interrupts,  with  a  sort  of  gasp. 

Her  eyes  are  dilated,  and  there  is  a  roughness  in  her 
voice  which  she  herself  hears.  He  makes  a  sign  of  assent. 

"  It  is  impossible  !  "  she  says,  speaking  low  and  rapid- 
ly 5  "  y°u  have  never  asked  my  opinion  ;  you  have  never 
consulted  me.  How  can  the  air  of  one  of  these  lakes 
differ  from  that  of  another  ?  it  is  fancy — all  fancy  !  As 
you  said  to  me  the  other  day,  there  is  nothing  that  gains 
upon  one  so  much  by  indulgence  in  them  as  valetudina- 
rian fancies  ! " 

He  turns  his  eyes  slowly  from  the  bill,  on  which  they 
have  been,  until  now,  riveted,  in  painstaking  search  for 
errors,  the  discovery  of  which  may  diminish  the  total,  and 
fixes  them  piercingly  upon  her. 

"You  seem  to  be  unaccountably  reluctant  to  quit  this 
place,"  he  says,  very  slowly  ;  "  why  are  you  so  much 
attached  to  it  ?  " 

There  is  that  in  his  tone,  or  she  thinks  so,  which  is 


BELINDA.  425 


unlike  anything  she  has  ever  heard  in  it  before  —  that 
which  at  once  strikes  her  inurmurings  dumb.  But  a  pass- 
ing frenzy  seizes  her,  bidding  her  answer  him,  for  once 
truly  ;  tell  him,  in  so  many  words,  face  to  face,  why  ;  to 
throw  the  game  up — have  done  with  it !  It  is  true  that 
the  longing  for  that  lunatic  relief  is  but  short ;  a  brief 
insanity  that  leaves  her  trembling  and  terror-struck — not 
at  him,  but  at  herself. 

He  has  long  removed  his  scrutiny  from  her  face,  and 
has  been,  for  many  minutes,  re-immersed  in  his  dissection 
of  the  bill,  before  she  speaks  ;  and  when  she  does,  it  is  clear 
that  he  has  no  further  insubordination  to  fear  from  her. 

"  The  coach  starts  at  eleven  ?  "  she  says,  in  a  very  low 
voice.  "  I  will  be  ready  !  " 

So  saying,  she  rises  and  drags  herself  to  the  door. 

"  If  you  see  a  waiter,  will  you  be  good  enough  to  tell 
him  that  I  wish  to  speak  to  the  manager  ?  "  says  her  hus- 
band, looking  up  ;  "  they  are  apt  to  disregard  my  bell, 
and  there  are  several  of  these  items  which  I  shall  indis- 
putably contest." 

Having  docilely  fulfilled  this  commission,  Mrs.  Forth 
once  more  returns  to  her  grandmother's  sitting-room  and 
looks  in. 

"  Is  granny  here  ?  " 

"She  is  not,"  replies  Sarah,  from  her  usual  watch- 
tower,  the  window.  "  To  tell  you  the  truth,  I  have  been 
giving  her  a  little  piece  of  my  mind,  as  to  her  incivility 
to  you  ;  she  knew  as  well  as  I  did  that  you  were  in  the 
room.  I  have  been  making  her  so  angry,"  breaking  into 
a  laugh,  "  by  telling  her  that  she  is  certainly  growing  a 
little  deaf ! " 

Since  the  coast  is  clear,  Belinda  has  entered,  and  sunk 
inertly  into  a  chair. 

"  It  is  a  little  annoying  for  her,  one  must  own,"  re- 
sumes Sarah,  with  an  air  of  impartiality,  "  to  be  suspected 


426  BELINDA. 


of  collusion  with  the  economies  of  our  friend  up-stairs  ;  it 
would  not  be  a  bad  thing  if  we  could  manage  to  establish 
the  fact  that  there  is  no  connection  beyond  a  tender  fam- 
ily affection  between  us  and  him  !  " 

"  You  can  not  be  more  anxious  to  prove  it  than  he  is," 
replies  Belinda ;  but,  as  she  speaks,  no  hot  red  wave  of 
shame  flows  this  time  over  her  face  ;  stronger  emotions 
than  that  which  had  called  it  forth  have  too  successfully 
driven  the  blood  back  to  her  heart ;  "  but  in  any  case  .you 
will  not  be  troubled  with  him  long  !  " 

"  Is  he  going  to  die  ?  "  cries  Sarah,  with  extreme  ani- 
mation, leaving  her  post  of  observation,  and  hastening  to 
her  sister's  side. 

"  He  threatens  that  if  he  stays  here  he  will !  " 

"I  wonder  is  there  anything  really  the  matter  with 
him  ?  "  says  Sarah,  in  a  tone  of  acute  curiosity.  "  There 
is  something  very  interesting  about  his  diseases  ;  I  always 
regret  not  having  utilized  my  former  opportunities  to 
learn  more  about  them.  I  suppose  there  must  be  some- 
thing odd  about  his  heart,  or  the  doctors  he  consulted 
would  not  have  given  him  drops  for  it." 

"And  would  not  they  have  given  him  pills  for  his 
liver,  or  draughts  for  his  spleen  either  ?  "  asks  Mrs.  Forth 
bitterly.  "  Is  not  it  a  little  improbable  that  all  his  organs 
have  been  hopelessly  deranged  for  the  last  sixty  years  ? 
No,  no  !  "  with  a  shrug,  "  you  need  not  be  alarmed  ;  he 
will  see  us  all  out !  " 

"  Then  why  are  we  not  to  be  troubled  with  him  long  ?  " 
inquires  Miss  Churchill,  puzzled. 

"He  imagines  that  this  place  disagrees  with  him," 
replies  Belinda,  in  a  dull,  flat  voice  ;  "  and  so  we  are  to 
leave  to-morrow  for  Derwentwater  ;  to-morrow  morning, 
by  the  coach  that  starts  at  eleven." 

"  And  you  have  consented  ?  "  (very  sharply,  and  with 
an  accent  of  excessive  astonishment). 


BELINDA.  427 


Her  sister's  answer  to  this  simple  question  seems  not 
at  once  forthcoming.  And  when  it  does  come,  it  is  by  no 
means  a  direct  one. 

"  Sarah,"  she  says  slowly,  and  turning  even  whiter 
than  she  already  is — though,  indeed,  that  is  scarcely  need- 
ful— "  do  you  remember  once  telling  me  that  you  were 
afraid  I  was  going  to  the  devil,  and  that  I  was  taking  " — 
a  pause  and  a  sort  of  gasp — "  David  Rivers  with  me  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  remember  !  "  replies  the  other  dryly. 

"  Then  why  " — Mrs.  Forth's  voice  has  sunk  to  a  whis- 
per— "  then  why  have  you  never  told  me  so  lately  ?  " 

Miss  Churchill's  eyebrows  rise. 

"My  dear  soul,"  she  says  bluntly,  "you  did  not  re- 
ceive my  first  exhortation  in  such  a  spirit  as  to  make  me 
very  anxious  to  hazard  a  second." 

Belinda's  head  has  sunk  forward  upon  her  chest. 

"  You  were  not  very  far  wrong  then  !  "  she  says  faintly, 
"  but  you  would  be  still  nearer  the  truth  now  !  " 

There  is  a  silence.  Sarah  has  begun  to  march  un- 
quietly  up  and  down  the  room,  with  her  hands  behind 
her.  Perhaps  the  confession  just  made  her  does  not  par- 
take much  of  the  nature  of  a  surprise.  For  there  is  less 
of  astonishment  than  of  genuine  concern  in  her  face. 

"  And  you  are  going  ?  "  she  says  abruptly  ;  "  but  who 
is  to  prevent  his  following  you  ?  " 

Belinda's  lip  trembles. 

"  He  will  not,  if  I  tell  him  not." 

Her  eyes  wander  wistfully  away  through  the  window 
to  mountain  and  mere.  The  high  peaks  are  still  with- 
drawn into  the  mystery  of  their  morning  vapors,  but  all 
the  lovely  lake  is  at  play  with  the  sun.  To-morrow,  to- 
morrow, he  was  to  have  rowed  her  on  that  lake  ! 

Suddenly  her  attitude  of  subdued  wretchedness  changes 
to  one  of  more  violent  pain. 

"  What  am  I  thinking  of  ?  "  she  cries,  starting  up  ;  "I 


428  BELINDA. 


had  forgotten  !  I  shall  not  see  him  again  ;  he  has  been 
obliged  to  go  to  Milnthorpe  to-day  on  business  ;  and  by 
the  time  he  gets  back  to-morrow,  we  shall  be  gone  !  we 
shall  be  gone  !  " 

"  He  will  be  after  you  by  the  next  coach  ! "  replies 
Sarah,  with  cynical  good  sense. 

Belinda  utters  a  low  groan. 

"  I  must  write  to  him  !  " 

"  Do  not !  "  cries  Sarah  dissuasively  ;  "  never  write  ! 
Whatever  else  you  give  up,  adhere  to  that  golden  rule  ! 
In  the  length  and  breadth  of  Europe,"  says  Miss  Churchill, 
with  a  modest  pride,  "  there  is  not  a  square  inch  of  my 
handwriting  to  be  obtained  !  " 

Once  again  Belinda  moans. 

"  If  I  do  not  write,  he  will  certainly  find  out  where  we 
have  gone  to  ;  unless  " — her  eyes  still  taking  that  miser- 
able farewell  journey  to  the  lake — "  unless  I  leave  word 
that  we  do  not  wish  it  known." 

"  That  would  scarcely  do,"  rejoins  Sarah  dryly  ;  "  it 
would  be  hardly  advisable  to  take  the  waiters  into  our 
confidence." 

A  pause.  Miss  Churchill  still  pursuing  her  restless 
walk,  and  undistracted  even  by  the  strains  of  the  banjo 
clearly  heard  from  below,  and  the  sound  of  a  male,  as 
well  as  a  female  voice,  obviously  accompanying  it. 

"  I  suppose,"  she  says  by-and-by,  sighing  impatiently, 
"  that  the  end  of  it  is,  it  will  devolve  upon  me  :  our  roles 
are  reversed.  All  my  life  I  have  been  asking  you  to  un- 
dertake disagreeable  commissions  for  me,  and  now  I  must 
do  you  the  same  kind  office.  I  suppose  that  I  must  tell 
him  ?  " 

"You?"  cries  Belinda,  wheeling  suddenly  round,  a 
passionate  dissent  from  this  proposal  in  voice  and  eyes, 
and  with  a  new  rush  of  her  lately  dormant  old  and  sense- 
less jealousy  ;  "  why  you  f  " 


BELINDA.  429 


"Would  you  prefer  granny?"  asks  Sarah  quietly. 
"  Some  one  must  tell  him  ;  you  can  hardly  suppose  that  I 
very  greedily  covet  the  office  ! " 

At  the  cool  rationality  of  her  sister's  words,  Belinda's 
rebel  blood  slowly  subsides  again,  and  her  head  sinks 
once  more  upon  her  breast.  How  thin  these  floors  are  ! 
One  can  hear  each  word  of  the  idiotic  melody  warbled  by 
Bellairs  and  the  girl  in  red  ;  but  Miss  Churchill  never 
flinches.  Belinda  is  the  first  to  speak,  though  it  is  not  at 
once  easy  to  comprehend  the  drift  of  her  words,  so  unsure 
and  muffled  is  her  voice. 

"  You  will  tell  him  as  kindly  as  you  can  ?  " 

"  Do  you  think  it  will  kill  him  ?  "  replies  Sarah,  with 
a  touch  of  sarcasm  ;  "  if  you  remember,  you  thought  that 
his  father's  death  would  kill  him,  but  it  did  not" !  Pooh  ! 
They  take  more  killing  than  that  !  " 


CHAPTER  IY. 

"  Often,  however,  was  there  a  question  present  to  me :  should  some 
one  now  at  the  turning  of  that  corner  blow  thee  suddenly  out  of  Space 
into  the  other  world,  or  no-world,  by  pistol-shot,  how  were  it  ?  " 

THE  wrench  is  accomplished.  The  coach  that  starts 
at  eleven  o'clock  has  started.  Within  the  close  precincts 
of  its  interior,  it  has  carried  away,  among  other  persons, 
the  cautiously-enveloped  figure  of  Professor  Forth  ;  and 
among  its  mackintoshed  and  umbrellaed  outside  passen- 
gers, it  reckons  his  wife. 

"  I  never  was  so  glad  of  anything  in  my  life,"  says 
Mrs.  Churchill,  walking  briskly  back  to  the  fire  from  the 
rain-blurred  window,  whence  she  has  been  waving  adieux 
of  accented  tenderness  to  her  descendants. 


430  BELINDA. 


"Not  even  when  you  first  hailed  him  as  grandson  ?" 
asks  Sarah  caustically. 

Mrs.  Churchill  reddens. 

"Poor  soul  !  "  says  the  girl,  with  an  accent  of  heart- 
felt compassion,  following  with  her  eyes  the  departing 
vehicle. 

"  I  never  can  understand  why  you  should  pity  her  ! " 
retorts  the  elder  woman,  with  irritation  ;  "  there  is  no 
greater  mistake  than  to  measure  every  one  by  one's  own 
foot-rule." 

"  I  suppose  that,  without  offense  to  any  one,  I  may  pity 
her  for  getting  extremely  wet,"  replies  Sarah  surlily. 

And  certainly,  on  this  count,  Mrs.  Forth,  by  the  time 
of  her  arrival  at  the  Lodore  Hotel,  does  deserve  as  much 
compassion  as  she  can  get.  Stiff  and  drenched,  she  has 
climbed  down  from  her  perch.  Pouring  as  is  the  day, 
the  coach  has  been  crowded.  Belinda's  ribs  on  each  side 
feel  indented  with  the  continued  nudging  of  her  com- 
panions' elbows  ;  and  there  has  been  such  a  cordial  inter- 
change of  drips  between  all  the  umbrellas,  that  it  would 
have  been  a  sensibly  drier  course  to  have  taken  no  um- 
brellas at  all.  Upon  the  tarpaulin  that  covers  the  lug- 
gage, lakes  of  water  have  collected,  which,  at  each  fresh 
jolt  of  the  coach,  discharge  themselves  refreshingly  upon 
the  passengers'  knees.  As  far  as  any  glimpse  of  moun- 
tain that  the  blanket-clouds  have  allowed  them  to  obtain 
is  concerned,  they  might  as  well  have  been  in  Holland. 
Dunmail  Raise,  Skiddaw,  Saddleback — what  have  they 
been  but  various  names  for  the  one  huge  white  pelt  ?  It 
is  a  grand  day  for  the  becks — the  foaming,  jumping,  brim- 
ful becks,  and  they  are  the  only  cheerful  things  she  has 
seen  ;  they,  and  the  long  lythrums  growing  lushly  beside 
them. 

"  You  have  no  one  to  blame  but  yourself,"  says  Pro- 
fessor Forth,  emerging,  dry  and  warm  from  the  steaming 


BELINDA.  431 


interior,  and  severely  regarding  his  half-drowned  wife  ; 
"  had  you  taken  my  advice — " 

"  I  blame  no  one,"  she  interrupts,  apathetically  ;  "  there 
is  no  great  harm  in  being  wet ;  it  is  very  easy  to  get  dry 
again  ! " 

"  You  have  every  appearance  of  having  taken  a  chill," 
scrutinizing  her  shivering  figure  with  an  angry  solicitude 
that  might  appear  the  outcome  of  an  anxious  affection  ; 
"it  would  be  extremely  vexatious  if,  thanks  to  a  mere 
caprice  on  your  part,  you  were  to  be  so  soon  again  laid 
up.  I  must  insist  upon  your  at  once  drinking  a  glass  of 
hot  brandy-and-water  as  a  preventive  !  " 

"  I  have  taken  no  chill,"  she  answers  faintly,  but  she 
obeys  with  a  dull  acquiescence. 

There  is  no  draught  he  could  offer  her,  from  Socrates's 
hemlock  upward  or  downward,  that  she  would  not  think 
it  less  trouble  to  take  than  to  refuse.  The  rain  pours  on 
and  on,  all  through  the  table-d'hote,  all  through  the  long, 
long  evening.  There  is  a  public  drawing-room  to  which, 
after  dinner,  the  other  guests  betake  themselves,  shawl- 
wrapped,  grumbling,  and  uttering  aspirations  for  a  fire. 
Belinda  has  not  the  heart  to  accompany  them.  She 
climbs  the  stairs  to  her  bedroom  in  the  roof,  although  at 
eight  o'clock  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  go  to  bed.  No 
sense,  indeed,  of  the  prematureness  of  the  hour  prevents 
her  flying  to  the  blessed  keeping  of  sleep  ;  but  the  knowl- 
edge that  whatever  moments  are  filched  from  conscious- 
ness now,  will  be  asked  back  with  usury  in  the  gray 
morning  hours — those  grim,  gray  hours  that  only  the 
tiny  minority  of  the  quite  happy  and  the  completely  in- 
nocent dare  face. 

Her  window  is  open,  and  looks  to  the  back  ;  to  the 
wooded  hill  rising  so  immediately  behind  the  house  that 
it  seems  as  if,  with  outstretched  hand,  one  might  touch 
it.  The  rain  swishes  past :  now  and  then,  when  the 


432  BELINDA. 


freakish  gust  takes  it,  swishes  in.  She  sits  down  on  her 
bed  and  listens  to  it.  For  two  hours  she  will  listen  to 
its  swishing  ;  and  then,  perhaps,  she  may  dare  give  her- 
self— tired  body  and  sick  heart — to  slumber.  With  the 
rain  mixes  the  never-ceasing  noise  of  the  waterfall.  On 
a  sultry  summer  night  no  doubt  it  is  sweet  and  lulling, 
falling  coolly  beneath  the  stars  ;  but  it  seems  to  treble, 
to  centuple  the  dreariness  of  this  inclement  drenching 
evening,  cold  as  winter,  and  without  winter's  palliatives 
of  thick  curtains  and  blazing  logs.  It  gets  upon  her 
nerves  at  last.  It  seems  as  if  she  must  stop  it  for  one 
instant  or  die.  If  its  wet  din  would  fill  her  brain,  in- 
deed, as  it  fills  her  ears,  crowding  out  other  presences, 
she  would  thank  it,  and  bless  it  on  her  knees  ;  but,  on 
the  contrary,  its  clamor  seems  to  make  thought  sharper, 
memory  intenser,  fancy  wilder.  With  what  a  dreadful 
liveliness  does  she  rehearse — set  to  the  murderous  monot- 
ony of  its  tune — the  scene  of  Rivers's  back-coming  to- 
morrow !  It  grows  at  last  so  hideously  real  that  she  asks 
herself  in  bewilderment,  "Has  she  really  seen — is  she 
really  seeing  it  ?  " 

She  passes  her  hand  across  her  forehead  and  rubs 
her  eyes.  In  what  room  of  the  hotel — in  which  often- 
trodden  spot  by  wave-lipped  mere  will  the  blow  fell 
him?  How  will  he  take  it?  Will  it  kill  him?  She 
laughs  aloud.  "  Pooh  !  as  Sarah  says,  *  they  take  more 
killing  than  that ! '  And  how  much  killing  will  she  her- 
self take  ?  "  This  Sarah  has  never  told  her.  How  much 
of  this  slow  death?  A  great,  great  deal  !  Was  ever 
any  one  so  full  of  obstinate  life  as  she  ?  Other  women — 
women  who  prayed  to  live,  women  with  little  children's 
chubby  arms  about  their  necks,  with  passionate,  fond 
husbands,  wetting  their  faint  hands  with  good-by  tears 
— would  have  died  of  such  an  illness  as  hers.  She,  child- 
less, hated  and  hating,  has  survived.  A  sense  of  impo- 


BELINDA.  433 


tent,  dark  rebellion  fills  her  soul.  Of  what  use  to  save 
her  alive?  What  sense  in  it?  To  save  her  alive  in 
order  to  show  her  just  one  small  glimpse  of  what  life 
might  have  been,  and  then  to  hurl  her  back  into  what 
life  is  !  What  life  might  have  been  !  Oh,  the  terrible 
vividness  of  that  vision  ! 

She  has  fallen  sideways  upon  her  bed,  which,  as  well 
as  her  whole  body,  is  shaken  with  the  force  of  her  silent 
sobs.  They  must  be  silent,  for  the  walls  are  thin,  and 
her  husband's  attic  is  next  door. 

"  If  we  had  once  belonged  to  each  other,"  she  says, 
with  a  violent  agony  of  emphasis,  "  even  if  afterward  I 
had  seen  him  struck  dead  at  my  feet,  still,  I  should  have 
known  what  is  the  very  best  thing  that  life  holds  ;  I  could 
have  said, '  I  have  lived  ! '  but  now  I  shall  lie  down  in  my 
grave,  knowing  that  there  has  always  been  something 
immeasurably  better  than  anything  I  know  just  beyond 
me!" 

After  that  she  lies  quite  still,  a  sort  of  numb  calm 
succeeding  the  hurricane,  and  outside  the  rain  swirls  al- 
ways, and  the  waterfall  tumbles.  There  must  be  more 
of  soothing  properties  in  their  joint  sound  than  she  gives 
them  credit  for,  since  by-and-by  their  sullen  music  grows 
dim  in  her  ears,  and  she  sleeps. 

She  awakes  in  the  early  morning,  forlorn  and  cold,  to 
find  that  she  has  lain  all  night,  fully  dressed,  outside  her 
bed.  She  is  down  in  good  time,  and  stands  outside  the 
hall-door,  waiting  for  breakfast  to  be  announced.  The 
rain  has  ceased.  The  wind  has  torn  and  hurled  the  clouds 
apart,  and  let  the  sun  look  through  ;  and  also  swept  clear 
little  intensely  blue  islands  in  the  sky.  The  shadows  are 
flying,  speedy  as  dreams,  along  Skiddaw's  flanks,  and 
Derwentwater  lies — all  billowy  and  disturbed — at  the 
foot  of  her  girdling  fells.  On  the  bit  of  marshy  grass 
that  intervenes  between  Belinda  and  the  lake,  several 

19 


434  BELINDA. 


horses  are  grazing,  and  two  rolling.    One  can  not  roll 
quite  over,  which  seems  to  annoy  him. 

"I  hope  that  you  are  recovered  from  the  effects  of 
your  yesterday's  imprudence,"  says  a  voice  at  her  elbow. 

She  starts. 

"  There  were  not  any  to  recover  from,"  she  answers, 
with  a  shrug. 

"  In  that  case,"  says  her  husband  stiffly,  "  and  since 
you  have  every  appearance  of  being  in  other  respects  per- 
fectly restored  to  health,  I  think  I  am  justified  in  pro- 
posing that  you  should  return  to  your  normal  habits, 
which  have  been  for  so  long,  and  at  such  great  incon- 
venience to  myself,  interrupted." 

Belinda  smiles  slightly.  She  is  well  aware  that  it  is 
only  the  presence  of  her  grandmother  and  Sarah  that  has, 
up  to  this  time,  prevented  the  pack-saddle  from  being 
replaced  upon  her  back.  It  is  being  now,  at  the  earliest 
opportunity,  strapped  on  again.  Well,  what  matter  ? 

"I  perfectly  agree  with  you,"  she  answers  hastily. 
"I  have  not  the  shadow  of  an  excuse  for  any  further 
idleness.  After  such  a  holiday,"  catching  her  breath  in 
a  sigh,  "  a  little  work  will  do  me  good." 

But  people's  ideas  as  to  what  a  little  work  is  differ. 
•  "I  need  scarcely  tell  you,"  says  the  Professor,  when, 
after  the  tdble-d'hote  breakfast,  he  and  she  have  mounted 
to  his  bedroom,  which,  as  at  Lowood,  is  also  his  study — 
"indeed,  it  has  once  or  twice  struck  me  with  surprise 
that  the  idea  of  a  spontaneous  offer  of  assistance  should 
not  have  occurred  to  you — that  my  correspondence  is  very 
seriously  in  arrears  ;  moderate  application,  however,  will 
to-day  reduce  it  in  a  great  degree  to  order.  I  have  briefly 
indicated,  upon  each  letter,  the  tenor  of  the  answer  I  wish 
drawn  up." 

As  he  speaks  he  places  before  her  a  large  pile  of 
docketed  letters.  If  any  dismay  at  its  height  and  breadth 


BELINDA.  435 


enters  her  soul  she  swallows  it  down  in  silence.  The  sun 
comes  forth  in  summer  strength,  but  though  the  room  is 
not  a  tenth  part  as  large  as  the  Professor's  Oxbridge 
study,  the  window  is  as  rigorously  closed  as  ever  it  was 
there.  The  garret,  like  her  own,  looks  to  the  back,  and 
in  it  there  is  no  escape  from  the  waterfall's  loud  pouring. 
She  is  still  teased  by  that  maniac  notion  that  she  must 
make  it  stop  or  die.  Unused,  for  the  past  couple  of 
months,  to  close  air,  to  confinement,  to  toil,  her  head  soon 
begins  to  ache,  sometimes  swims,  burns  always,  but  she 
makes  no  complaint. 

The  clock  strikes  one  ;  she  hears  cheerful  voices,  and 
steps  trooping  down  the  passage  outside  to  luncheon. 
The  Professor  is  no  great  advocate  of  luncheon,  even 
when  he  can  eat  it  at  some  one  else's  expense  ;  at  an 
hotel  he  simply  ignores  the  possibility  of  its  existence. 
But  she  can  not  complain.  He  is  willing  to  share  with 
her  such  hospitality  as  he  extends  to  himself.  Biscuits 
bought  at  a  shop  in  Ambleside,  so  that  there  may  be  no 
danger  of  their  figuring  in  the  hotel  bill,  and  weak 
brandy-and- water — the  brandy  also  his  own.  She  declines 
the  brandy,  would  fain  decline  the  biscuits  too  ;  to  eat  in 
such  an  air,  and  with  such  a  heavy  head,  seems  impossi- 
ble, but  she  dreads  being  scolded  for  her  sickliness  if  she 
refuse. 

Two  o'clock  strikes  !  Three  !  Half -past  three  !  Four  ! 
Even  now  her  pile  seems  scarce  perceptibly  diminished. 
Two  or  three  times  she  has  been  thrown  back,  by  having 
to  draw  up  a  fresh  draft,  her  muddled  brain  and  wander- 
ing thoughts  having  led  her  to  mistake  the  sense  of  his 
directions.  Hopeless  tears  fill  her  eyes,  as  she  tears 
across  each  sheet  and  begins  another.  As  the  clock 
strikes  four,  the  pen  drops  from  her  numbed  fingers. 

"I  think  you  must  excuse  me,"  she  says,  faintly. 
"  I — I — do  not  feel  very  well ! " 


436  BELINDA. 


"Not  well?"  returns  he  sharply  ;  "then  your  indis- 
position is,  of  course,  attributable  to  the  chill  you  con- 
tracted yesterday  !  " 

"  The  chill  ?  "  replies  she,  laughing  hysterically,  and 
pressing  her  hot  hands  to  her  throbbing  forehead.  The 
chill?  Oh,  how  delightful  it  would  be  to  have  a  chill ! 
No,  no,  it  is  only  the  old  story.  It  is  only  that  I  have 
broken  down  again  !  " 

"  Impossible  !  "  he  cries,  angrily  ;  "  in  that  case  your 
health  can  never  have  been  really  re-established  !  " 

"  I  suppose  not,"  assents  she,  dully.  "  Well,  may  I 
go?" 

"  Why  do  you  ask  ? "  retorts  he,  waspishly,  and  re- 
garding with  a  dissatisfied  air  her  uncompleted  task. 
"  Do  I  ever  put  any  check  upon  your  actions  ?  I  merely 
reserve  to  myself  the  right  of  requesting  that  you  will  not 
incur  the  risk  of  contracting  another  chill." 

She  is  very  willing  to  buy  her  liberty  at  the  price  of 
this  most  unnecessary  promise.  At  what  price  would  not 
she  buy  air,  the  liberty  to  gasp,  the  privilege — beyond  all 
value — of  being  alone  ?  Without  much  thought,  she  has 
taken,  on  leaving  the  hotel,  the  Borrowdale  road,  walks 
along  it  for  some  distance,  confused  and  woolly-headed, 
conscious  only  of  the  relief  of  having  temporarily  es- 
caped from  suffocation — from  the  waterfall — from  him  ! 
But  by-and-by  the  loveliness  around  her  wakes  her  again 
— wakes  her  to  new  and  keener  sufferings.  She  is  aware 
of  the  road  that  winds  in  gentle  companionship  with  the 
windings  of  the  Derwent ;  she  is  aware  of  the  marvel- 
ous colored  water,  tinted  a  strange  fair  green  by  the 
stones  in  its  bed,  and  clear  as  the  crystal  stream  in  the 
Apocalypse. 

Above,  the  great  crags  rear  their  steepy  heads  ;  the 
Castle  Crag  that,  at  one  point,  seems  to  block  the  valley, 
guarding  hid  treasures  behind  it,  and  saying  austerely, 


BELINDA.  437 


"  You  shall  not  pass  me  ! "  the  Gate  Crag,  that  looks 
down,  benignant  though  awful,  on  the  prattle  of  the 
river  curling  round  its  feet,  looks  down  with  its  solemn 
purple-gray  rock-shelves  and  sheer  slopes  of  slate. 

As  she  nears  the  village,  she  turns  off  a  road  to  the 
left,  and  begins  to  climb  the  hill.  She  proposes  to  herself 
no  goal.  She  does  not  know  where  she  is,  or  whither  she 
is  going.  She  only  knows  that  each  step  takes  her  farther 
from  the  waterfall,  and  from  him.  Climbing,  climbing, 
climbing,  through  a  wood,  up  a  mountain-path,  until  at 
length,  panting,  she  attains  the  hill-crest,  and,  turning, 
looks  back  upon  all  the  beauty  and  majesty  of  Borrowdale. 
But  even  here,  she  only  halts  to  cast  one  breathless  glance 
at  the  great  hills,  thrown  about  as  if  in  Titan  play,  and 
looking  over  each  other's  shoulders,  silent,  wondrously- 
colored,  august !  She  is  not  far  away  enough,  even  yet. 
With  knees  that  tremble  and  give  beneath  her  —  for  she 
has  been  but  little  used  to  such  a  walk — a  walk  under- 
taken, too,  almost  fasting — she  descends  the  hill  on  the 
other  side  ;  and  at  its  foot  finds  a  most  lonely  tarn,  here, 
in  the  heart  of  the  fells. 

A  little  ale-house,  lonely,  too,  sits  near  it,  backed  by 
three  or  four  storm-wrecked  Scotch  firs  ;  and  around,  the 
fells  lift  their  harsh  faces,  scored  by  the  channels  of  their 
winter  weepings.  She  asks  the  stout  housewife  at  the 
little  inn  for  a  drink  of  milk  ;  but  she  does  not  inquire 
where  she  is,  nor  in  which  direction  Lodore  lies.  She 
would  far  rather  not  know.  She  has  lost  her  way,  and 
will  be  late  for  the  table-cTMte !  Well  ?  He  will  be 
imagining  that  she  has  contracted  some  new  and  ex- 
pensive chill  !  Well?  She  may  go  astray  upon  the 
mountains,  and  perish  like  the  sheep  in  winter  !  WELL  ? 
The  milk  has  a  little  revived  her  flagging  powers  ;  and 
she  walks  on  again.  Whither  ?  She  neither  knows  nor 
cares.  She  only  knows  that  she  is  among  friends — 


438  BELINDA. 


among  the  stern  yet  summer-softened  hills  that  lend  her 
the  sympathy  of  their  silence  ;  among  the  crisp  and  frolic 
mountain  airs,  and  the  beds  of  bog-myrtle  that  smells  of 
bay-leaves;  while — friendliest  of  all  —  blithe  comforter 
and  comrade — a  mountain  beck  tinkles,  a  hand-breadth 
off,  beside  her.  But  there  is  a  limit  even  to  the  sustain- 
ing powers  of  a  cup  of  milk  ;  and  by-and-by  she  sinks 
down  faint  and  spent,  by  that  flower-lipped  brook  upon 
the  dainty  bed  of  ferns  and  sundews  with  which  it  is  set 
round. 

Why  should  she  ever  move  hence  again  ?  What  in- 
ducement is  there  to  her  ever  again  to  lift  up  her  tired 
limbs  and  leave  the  mute  society  of  these  bald  limestone 
crags  and  steeps  of  shingle  and  flint?  Whither  could 
she  go  to  better  herself  ?  In  what  direction  on  earth's 
broad  face  does  any  good  for  her  lie  ?  Why  should  not 
she  lie  down  and  die  here  ?  Die  !  But  is  it  such  an  easy 
thing  to  die  ?  Has  not  she  already  tried  hard  and  failed  ? 
Oh,  if  she  could  but  gently  depart  here  now  !  Surely 
no  one  could  ever  wish  for  a  sweeter,  fragranter  death- 
bed ! 

She  stretches  herself  back  upon  the  bog-myrtle  and 
sundews,  and  closes  her  eyes,  trying  to  fancy  that  it  is 
over,  and  that  she  is  dead.  Oh,  if  she  might  but  be  gently 
sponged  out  of  being  !  It  seems  such  a  small  thing  to 
ask,  and  yet  she  might  as  well  bid  the  mountains  bow 
down  and  the  sun  make  obeisance  to  her.  She  asks  for 
no  other  life  instead.  Has  her  experience  of  this  one 
been  so  pleasant  that  she  is  greedy  for  more  ?  If  there 
be  another  world,  what  security  is  there  that  it  is  a  bet- 
ter one  ?  May  not  it  resemble  this  ?  the  same  long  hopes 
that  go  gradually,  sickeningly  out  ;  the  same  poniard-stabs 
of  recollection  thrusting  one  through  in  the  hour  of  the 
uncolored  dawn  ;  the  same  tiny,  weakling  joys. 

She  has  raised  herself  from  her  recumbent  attitude. 


BELINDA.  439 


and  her  head  is  bowed  forward  upon  her  knees,  which  her 
long  arms  embrace.  Neither  by  death  nor  by  life  is  there 
any  escape  for  her !  But  there  is  a  mode  of  outlet  for 
her  nearer  at  hand  than  she  wots  of.  It  is  noiseless  walk- 
ing upon  the  fine  mountain  herbage  ;  there  the  heaviest 
foot  falls  mutely — so  noiseless  that,  until  he  who  has  been 
approaching  her  stoops  and  most  gently  touches  her  on 
the  shoulder,  she  is  unaware  that  any  one  is  nigh.  She 
springs  up  staggeringly,  with  a  loud  cry  : 

"  row/" 

"Yes,  If" 

It  seems  as  if  she  had  spent  all  her  breath  on  that  one 
monosyllable,  since,  for  a  while,  nothing  more  comes  ; 
then,  at  last,  a  gasping  whisper : 

"  Did  not— Sarah— tell  you  ?  " 

"Yes;  she  told  me." 

Her  breath  comes  hard  and  labored.  How  is  it  possi- 
ble to  interpose  any  words  between  such  heart-beats  ?  At 
last: 

"You — have — always  bragged  about  your  obedience 
to  me,"  she  says  slowly  ;  "  you  have  always  boasted 
of  doing  what  I  told  you — is  this  doing  what  I  told 
you?" 

He  offers  no  exculpation.  He  only  stands  dogged- 
ly before  her,  white  and  burning-eyed,  but  not  trem- 
bling. 

"  This — it — is,"  she  says,  with  that  same  slow  inten- 
sity— "this  —  it  —  is  —  to  throw  yourself  upon  a  man's 
generosity  ! " 

His  lips  twitch,  but  his  eyes  are  still  dogged. 

"  I  will  go  at  your  bidding  ;  I  will  go  at  no  one 
else's  ! " 

She  looks  distractedly  round  at  her  silent  friends — 
the  scarped  slopes,  where  the  lady-birch  finds  difficult 
footing,  but  yet  keeps  her  place,  and  hangs  her  delicate 


440  BELINDA. 


tresses  :  in  her  sore  need  she  consults  the  beck,  but  the 
hills  are  speechless  ;  and  though  the  beck  talks  fast,  she 
can  not  distinguish  the  meaning  of  its  words. 

"  I  will  go  if  you  tell  me  ;  and  I  will  stay  if  you  tell 
me!" 

Her  look  still  wanders  wildly  ;  and  her  ear  detects  the 
sound  of  a  little  oozing  runlet,  lost  hitherto  in  the  noise 
of  its  elder  brother — a  runlet  filtering  through  the  red 
moss  on  the  hill-side. 

"  Which  shall  it  be  ?  go  or  stay  ?  " 

His  voice,  that  hitherto  her  lightest  word  has  awed 
into  silence,  presses,  imperatively  asking,  upon  her  hear- 
ing. (Which  shall  it  be  ?  Which  ?  which  ?)  Oh,  if  some 
one  would  but  answer  for  her  !  If  mountain  or  runlet 
would  but  take  the  responsibility  of  that  one  all-weighty 
word  off  her !  Go  f  Leave  her  to  drag  her  tired  limbs 
back  into  that  bondage  which  seems  already  to  have 
endured  for  centuries,  and  for  a  limit  to  whose  mean 
and  sordid  sufferings  eye  and  heart  consult  the  long  future 
in  vain  ? 

"  lam  waiting  I     Which  shall  it  "be  f  " 

Hideous  future  !  Hideous  past !  Hideous  present !  She 
has  given  it  a  fair  trial.  No  one  can  say  that  she  has  not 
given  it  a  fair  trial. 

"  Which?" 

And  she  has  broken  down  ;  mind  and  body  her  tyrant 
has  broken  her  down.  He  will  break  her  down  again  if 
she  give  him  the  chance.  Why  should  she  ?  It  has  been 
his  turn  hitherto  !  Let  it  be  hers  now  ! 

"  WHICH  ? "  His  voice  is  no  longer  dogged  ;  heart- 
rendingly  urgent  only  " WHICH?"  He  has  taken  her 
hand,  and  has  laid  its  palm  upon  his  burning  eyes. 
"  Which  shall  it  be?  go  or  stay?" 

Her  look,  staring  yet  unseeing,  is  fixed  upon  the  little 
zigzag  green  paths  on  the  fell,  worn  by  the  small  feet  of 


BELINDA.  441 


the  mountain-sheep.  Not  a  bird's  voice  breaks  the  silence 
of  the  hills. 

"  It — shall — be — stay  !  "  she  says,  almost  inaudibly. 

Before  his  eyes  the  sun  dances,  and  the  steady  hills  go 
round.  Yet,  mixed  with  a  joy  so  awful  and  utter  that 
his  whole  strong  frame  reels  beneath  its  weight,  there 
comes  too  a  pain  keen  to  agony.  He  has  prevailed.  His 
high  goddess  has  fallen  from  her  pedestal,  and  it  is  he 
that  has  dragged  her  down  !  Her  divine  fair  head  lies  in 
the  dust,  and  it  is  he  that  has  laid  it  there  ! 

"  Do  you  know  what  you  are  saying  ? "  he  cries,  in 
suffocating  excitement.  "Sometimes  I  think  that  you 
say  things  of  which  you  do  not  understand  the  meaning  ! 
Do  you  understand  what  * stay*  means?  It  does  not 
mean  '  Stay  to-day,  and  go  to-morrow ' ;  it  means  *  Stay 
always,  ALWAYS,  ALWAYS  !  it  is  all  or  nothing  for  which 
I  am  asking.  Do  you  understand  ?  Which  ?  " 

She  draws  a  long,  heavy  breath,  as  one  recovering 
from  a  deep  swoon. 

"AH/"  she  answers,  whispering ;  and  so  breaks  into 
an  exceeding  bitter  cry  of  anguish  and  revolt:  "Twill 
not  die-without  having  lived/" 

Then,  indeed,  the  pain  goes,  swallowed  up  and  stifled 
in  the  enormity  of  his  gladness.  He  knows  that  here- 
after it  will  return,  but  now  he  is  only,  only  glad  !  Great 
God !  how  glad  !  He  has  thrown  himself  down  before 
her,  and  is  kissing  her  tired  feet,  and  clasping  her  knees. 
But  when  he  seeks  to  gather  her  into  his  arms,  she  pushes 
him  convulsively  away. 

"  No  !  no  ! "  she  says  wildly  ;  "  not  now  ! " 

"  What ! "  he  cries,  with  a  hideous  revulsion  of  feel- 
ing ;  "  you  have  been  fooling  me,  then  !  you  are  not  in 
earnest ! " 

" Not  in  earnest/"  she  says,  with  a  heart-broken 
smile  ;  "  do  you  think  that  I  am  joking  f  Can  not  you 


4:4:2  BELINDA. 


understand  that  I  have  fallen  low  enough  for  one 
day?" 

Her  voice  dies  away,  and  her  head  sinks  on  her  breast. 
His  high  queen  !  Already  she  looks  discrowned  and 
dissceptered.  By-and-by  she  lifts  her  haggard  face  and 
speaks. 

"  We  must  be  going  home,"  she  says  dully. 

He  complies  in  silence,  and  they  set  out.  Before  they 
have  gone  far,  one  of  those  swift  changes,  so  common  in 
mountain  weather,  has  sent  a  sharp  storm  driving  in  their 
faces.  She  is  unprovided  with  umbrella  or  mackintosh, 
and  the  large  drops  soon  saturate  her  light  gown.  He 
puts  his  arm  in  anxious  protection  round  her.  Her  first 
impulse  is  to  shrink  away  from  him  ;  but,  bethinking 
herself,  she  tamely  submits. 

"  Shall  I  stick  at  such  a  trifle — I,  that  stick  at  noth- 
ing?" 


CHAPTER  V. 

"  This  wrong  world." 

IT  is  evening.  Professor  Forth's  chilliness  has  for 
once  vanquished  his  parsimony ;  and  in  the  grate  of  his 
attic  room  a  small,  carefully  nursed,  never-poked  fire 
burns  sparingly  cheerful.  But  he  cowers  over  it,  and 
stretches  his  hand  to  its  frugal  blaze  alone.  One  would 
have  thought  that  such  a  walk  as  that  undertaken  by 
Mrs.  Forth  would  have  been  enough  to  satisfy  the  ener- 
gies of  any  reasonable  woman  ;  and  yet  she  is  again  out- 
of-doors.  She  is  not  walking,  indeed  ;  she  is  standing 
upon  the  rustic  bridge  that  leads  to  wood  and  waterfall ; 
standing  there  in  the  soft  dusk — not  alone  ! 

They  have  passed  the  windows  of  the  garishly-lit 


BELINDA.  443 


public  drawing-room,  where  lamps  and  jets  of  gas  are 
making  a  gaudy  glare  ;  a  heterogeneous  assemblage  of 
people,  forced  into  unnatural  sociability,  irksomely  driv- 
ing through  an  evening  in  common.  Some  are  working  ; 
some  are  playing  whist ;  some  are  yawning ;  one  is  feebly 
singing  ;  and  all  are  in  the  fullest  blaze  of  the  gas  and 
the  paraffin.  How  much  better  to  be  outside  in  the  moist, 
sweet  dark !  His  arms  are  about  her,  she  no  longer  resist- 
ing ;  and  her  tired  head  is  resting  on  his  shoulder. 

Henceforth  she  will  always  have  that  shoulder  on 
which  to  lay  down  her  head.  What  matter,  wading 
through  what  waters  she  has  reached  its  refuge  ?  A  throb 
of  mad,  reckless  joy  thrills  through  all  her  uneasy  body. 
Since  she  is  to  pay  the  price — and  such  a  price  ! — let  her 
at  least  have  some  joy  to  show  for  it !  Oh,  if  it  were 
but  all  right ! — all  on  the  straight ! — what  could  Heaven 
do  better  than  this  ?  Ay  !  but  the  might  of  that  "  if  "  ! 

"  And  you  must  go  ?  "  she  says  sighingly  ;  "  you  think 
it  is  quite  unavoidable  ;  you  must?" 

"  I  must ! "  he  answers,  in  a  tone  as  grudgingly  as 
hers  ;  "  there  is  no  help  for  it ;  there  are  " — hesitating — 
"  there  are  arrangements  to  be  made — that  I  must  make 
personally — that  could  not  be  done  by  writing ;  and  I 
must  also  go  to  Milnthorpe,  to  see  about  my  work." 

She  has  raised  her  head. 

"It — this  —  will  not  make  any  difference  to  your 
work  ?  "  she  asks  rapidly,  and  in  a  tone  of  acute  alarm  ; 
"it — it  will  not  injure  your  prospects ? " 

"  Of  course  not ;  of  course  not ! "  he  answers,  in  a 
tone  of  feverish  reassurance ;  "  why  should  it  ?  what 
connection  is  there  between  a  man's  private  life  and 
his  business  relations?  What  concern  is  it  of  theirs 
whether  or  not  I — I — " 

"  You  run  away  with  your  neighbor's  wife,"  she  says, 
in  a  low,  hard  voice,  finishing  his  sentence  ;  "  why  do 


444  BELINDA. 


not  you  speak  out  ?  if  a  thing  is  not  too  bad  to  do,  it  is 
not  too  bad  to  say  !  " 

But  through  the  dark  he  divines  the  agony  of  the 
blush  that  accompanies  her  words  ;  and  again  that  sword- 
like  pain,  which  had  marred  the  first  moments  of  his 
triumphant  bliss,  once  more  traverses  his  heart.  There 
is  not  a  breath  of  air.  What  has  become  of  yesterday's 
hustling  north  wind  ?  By  the  starlight  they  can  dimly 
see  that  the  clouds  no  longer  fold  the  mountain-heads. 
They  have  dropped  to  their  waists,  and  airily  girdle 
them. 

She  is  resting  her  feverish  hands  on  the  wooden  rail- 
ing, wet  with  the  recent  showers,  and  looking  down  on 
the  half -seen  shining  rocks,  and  the  water  flashing  white 
in  the  semi-darkness.  How  pleasant  is  its  continuous 
rush  and  low  roar  ;  and  yet  there  is  something  oppressive 
in  it ;  something  that  makes  one  out  of  breath  !  " 

"  You  will  not  be  long  away  ?  "  she  says,  with  a  pas- 
sionate wistf  ulness  ;  "  you  will  not  leave  me  long  alone  ? 
you  will  come  back  as  soon  as  you  can  ?  " 

"  Need  you  tell  me  that  ?  " 

There  is  almost  derision  in  his  tone.  He  has  drawn 
her  back  to  her  former  resting-place,  and  is  most  sooth- 
ingly and  half  timidly  caressing  her  hair.  Not  yet  can 
he  realize  that  it  is  the  glorious  proud  head  which  has 
always  seemed  farther  above  him  than  the  stars,  that  is 
lying  in  prone  abandonment  on  his  shoulder. 

"  You  will  not  despise  me  more  than  you  can  help  ?  " 
she  whispers,  with  a  sob  ;  dark  as  it  is,  hiding  her  face 
on  his  breast.  "  Of  course  you  must  despise  me  ;  but 
you  will  try  and  hide  it  as  well  as  you  can,  will  not 
you?" 

Are  his  wits  wandering  ?  Can  this  be  his  divine  and 
lofty  lady,  preferring  this  miserable  prayer  ?  Can  this 
be  he,  blasphemously  listening  to  it  ? 


BELINDA.  445 


"How  am  I  to  get  through  these  days?"  she  moans, 
clinging  to  him  ;  "  oh,  come  quickly  back  !  come  quick  ! 
quick  !  How  am  I  to  look  him  in  the  face  without  tell- 
ing him  what  I  am  planning  against  him  ?  if  he  says  one 
kind  word  to  me,  it  will  be  the  death  of  me !  Happily 
for  me,  he  never  does  !  " 

For  all  answer,  he  only  strains  her  more  desperately 
to  his  heart.  What  words  can  he  find  with  which  to 
console  her  ?  Surely  that  silent  embrace,  strongly  envel- 
oping her  with  its  love  and  its  pity,  is  best. 

"  I  shall  be  always  fancying  that  you  are  growing 
tired  of  me,"  she  says,  still  whispering,  and  her  speech 
broken  by  dry  sobs  ;  "  promise  not  to  grow  tired  of  me  ! 
promise  !  Remember  that  I  shall  have  nothing — nothing 
but  you  in  the  whole  wide  world  ;  and  that  when  you  are 
gone  from  me,  everything  will  be  gone  !  But  what  is  the 
use  of  making  you  promise  ?  "  with  a  despairing  change 
of  key ;  "  how  can  you  help  it  ?  If  you  grow  tired  of 
me,  you  will  grow  tired ;  and  there  will  be  an  end  of 
it!" 

She  has  pulled  herself  out  of  his  arms  ;  and  now 
stands  apart  from  him,  as  if  in  prophetic  renunciation. 
He  puts  up  his  hand  to  his  head  as  if  his  brain  were 
turning. 

"  When  you  say  such  things,"  he  cries  incoherently, 
"  you  make  me  feel  as  if  my  senses  were  gone.  I  grow 
tired  of  you  !  I!  It  Oh,  my  love,  my  lady,  my  queen  !  " 
falling  down  at  her  feet,  and  kissing  the  hem  of  her  gown, 
as  if  no  humility  of  posture  could  adequately  express  the 
abasement  of  his  soul  before  her ;  "  if  you  knew  how  I 
am  eating  my  heart  out  with  the  thought  that  you  may 
grow  tired  of  -me!  that  you  may  find  out  I  am  not 
worthy  of  the  sacrifice  you  are  making  for  me  ! — that  T, 
only  I! — oh  my  poor  love  !  my  poor  love  ! — may  not  be 
enough  for  you  !  " 


446  BELINDA. 


He  stops,  choked,  pressing  his  head  against  her  trem- 
bling knees  ;  and  his  scalding  tears  filter  through  her 
gown.  The  intensity  of  his  emotion  calms  her  a  little. 
At  all  events,  he  is  not  tired  of  her  yet !  She  stoops,  and 
lays  her  hand  almost  protectingly  upon  his  head. 

"  Yes  !  "  she  says  ;  "  you  will  be  enough  !  "  But  in 
the  dusk  her  face  looks  livid,  and  she  ends  her  sentence 
with  a  sob. 

The  next  morning  he  goes — goes,  leaving  her  to  live 
through,  as  best  she  may,  the  days  that  must  intervene 
before  his  return.  How — by  what  process  as  yet  uncon- 
jectured  by  her — is  she  to  live  through  them  ?  They  will 
pass,  of  course.  No  day  has  yet  dawned  upon  sad  hu- 
manity that  did  not  pass  ;  even  Damiens's  death-day 
passed.  But  how  ?  The  weather,  at  all  events,  will  not 
come  to  her  help.  It  has  changed  from  capricious  show- 
ers back  to  such  headstrong,  hopeless  rain  as  accom- 
panied their  drive  from  Lowood.  There  will  be  no  seek- 
ing escape  in  mountain-walks  ;  no  tiring  down  thought 
by  tired  muscles. 

"  How  am  I  to  live  through  them  ?  "  she  says,  as  she 
stands  alone,  at  the  window  of  her  husband's  room,  staring 
vacantly  through  the  smeared  pane,  which  baffles  sight, 
and  waiting  for  him  to  be  ready  to  begin  work. 

He  has  entered  the  room  without  her  perceiving  it. 
Has  she  spoken  her  last  words  aloud  ?  She  hardly  knows. 

"  What  are  you  looking  at  ?  "  he  asks. 

She  gives  a  great  start. 

"  I — I — am  looking  at  the  rain  !  " 

"  I  hope  that  you  will  content  yourself  with  looking 
at  it,"  retorts  he  dryly.  "  I  must  exact  a  promise  from 
you  that  you  will  not,  by  exposing  yourself  to  it,  incur 
the  danger  of  that  relapse  with  which  you  were  obviously 
threatened  yesterday." 

"  I  promise,"  she  answers  docilely. 


BELINDA.  447 


Since  she  is  going  to  be  guilty  of  this  one  enormous 
treason  against  him,  she  may  at  least  pay  him  the  mint, 
and  anise,  and  cummin  of  any  tiny  obedience  that  comes 
in  her  way. 

"  But  I  shall  have  no  temptation,"  she  adds  feverishly. 
"I  want  to  work  to-day  :  I  am  up  to  a  great  deal  of 
work.  You  need  not  be  afraid  of  overworking  me  to- 
day ! " 

(It  is  an  uncalled-for  caution  !  He  has  never  been  at 
all  afraid  of  overworking  her.)  And  yet,  indeed,  it  is 
from  him,  and  not  from  her,  that  the  first  suggestion  of 
an  interval  from  labor  comes.  The  afternoon  is  four 
hours  old,  and  the  faint  smell  of  the  brandy-and-water 
that  temperately  irrigated  the  Professor's  luncheon  is  be- 
ginning to  die  out  of  the  close  room,  when — 

"  Your  writing  has  become  unsteady,"  he  says,  look- 
ing critically  over  her  shoulder ;  "  I  presume  that  your 
hand  is  growing  tired.  Perhaps  we  had  better  desist 
until  to-morrow." 

"  No  !  no  !  "  she  cries  vehemently  ;  "  why  should  we  ? 
I  am  not  at  all  tired  !  it  is  only  carelessness.  I  will  take 
more  pains." 

"You  are  unable  any  longer  to  concentrate  your 
attention,"  he  says,  pursuing  his  examination  ;  "  you  have 
omitted  two  most  important  words." 

"  Have  I  ?  "  she  answers  remorsefully  ;  "  but  indeed  I 
am  not  tired  !  I  had  much  rather  go  on  ;  there — there  is 
no  time  like  the  present !  " 

"  To-morrow,"  he  begins  ;  but  she  interrupts  him. 

"  To-morrow /"  she  repeats  feverishly  ;  "who  knows 
what  may  happen  to-morrow  ?  We  may  both  be  dead 
to-morrow  ! " 

The  Professor  dislikes  the  mention  of  death. 

"  Psha  ! "  he  says  crossly  ;  "  what  is  the  use  of  in- 
dulging in  puerile  suppositions  ?  " 


448  BELINDA. 


But  she  has  her  will.  Until  the  hour  of  dinner  she 
toils  on.  She  has  not,  indeed,  attained  her  end — that 
state  of  numb  woolliness  to  which  yesterday  a  less  por- 
tion of  labor  has  brought  her.  To-day,  overwork  has  had 
the  contrary  effect  of  sharpening  to  its  highest  capability 
every  power  of  thought,  memory,  and  imagination. 

She  goes  down  to  the  table-d'hote  alone.  The  Pro- 
fessor, laboring  under  some  real  or  fancied  accession  to 
his  ailments,  has  (having,  however,  previously  taken  care 
to  notify  in  good  time  his  intention)  restricted  himself  to 
the  delight  of  a  basin  of  gruel  over  his  own  fire.  Belinda 
is  placed  at  dinner  beside  a  couple  who  had  been  fellow- 
inmates  with  her  of  the  Lowood  Hotel,  and  who,  like  her, 
had  come  on  hither.  She  had  been  on  terms  of  friendly 
civility  with  them,  and  they  now  express  pleasure  at  hav- 
ing again  met  her,  and  try  to  draw  her  into  conversation. 
But  she  repulses  all  their  efforts  with  a  surly  brevity. 
They  shall  not  have  to  say  afterward  that  she  let  them 
talk  to  her. 

And  now  the  day — one  day — is  ended,  and  it  is  night. 
Oh,  these  nights  !  Dreadful  are  they — dream-haunted, 
nightmare-ridden !  and  yet  neither  dream  nor  night- 
mare is  comparable  for  horror  to  their  waking  moments. 
And  through  them  all,  the  waterfall  pours,  pours,  in  its 
maddening  monotony.  Sometimes  she  feels  as  if  she 
must  tell  some  one  ;  must  rush  out  to  some  of  the  sleep- 
ing strangers  and  tell  them  !  Perhaps  it  would  not  sound 
so  bad  if  it  were  told !  After  all,  such  things  happen 
every  day.  Her  loss  will  be  no  loss  to  her  husband  ;  an 
economy  rather  ! 

She  laughs  bitterly.  He  will  be  glad  to  be  rid  of  her. 
Has  not  everybody  with  whom  she  has  lived  hitherto 
been  glad  to  be  rid  of  her  ?  Could  her  grandmother  con- 
tain her  joy  at  having  shaken  her  off  ?  Professor  Forth, 
too,  will  be  glad  to  be  rid  of  her.  By-and-by,  he  will  be 


BELINDA.  449 


glad  to  be  rid  of  her  !  Oh,  the  despair  of  that  thought  ! 
She  will  see  him  growing  tired  of  her  !  Loyal  gentleman 
as  he  is,  he  will  try  his  best  to  hide  it  ;  but  he  will  not 
hide  it  from  her.  She  will  be  jealous  of  the  very  air 
for  touching  his  face  ;  every  day  she  will  ask  herself,  "  Is 
he  quite  the  same  ?  Is  he  quite  as  glad  to  see  me  as  he 
used  to  be  ?  Does  he  call  me  his  darling  quite  as  often  as 
he  did  ?  "  She  will  see  his  love  slowly  sliding — sliding 
away  from  her.  What  will  she  have  to  bind  him  to  her  ? 
Not  honor,  for  she  will  have  cast  off  honor  ;  not  real  love, 
for  real  love  goes  only  with  respect,  and  she  will  have 
said  good-by  to  respect ;  she  will  have  shaken  hands  with 
shame.  The  cold  sweat  of  agony  stands  on  her  brow. 
Whether  or  not  there  be  a  hell  elsewhere,  she  has  found 
hers  here. 

The  last  day  has  come  ;  the  last  of  the  three  that  are 
to  intervene  between  his  going  and  the  morning  when 
she  is  to  meet  him  at  Keswick  Railway  station,  bidding, 
for  his  sake,  farewell  to  husband,  friends,  and  good  re- 
pute. 

Two  nights  such  as  the  one  I  have  described;  two 
days  which,  though  inferior  in  agony,  seem  yet  to  have 
been  crammed  as  full  of  mental  suffering  as  they  can  hold, 
have  brought  her  to  the  verge  of  a  nervous  fever.  At 
the  lightest  noise  it  seems  as  if  she  must  scream  out  loud. 
She  is,  as  usual,  at  her  toil  in  her  husband's  room.  She 
has  changed  her  position,  so  that  she  may  not  see  him  as 
she  writes  ;  so  bitter  is  the  remorse  with  which  the  sight 
of  his  withered  face  and  shrunk  figure  fills  her.  Poor  old 
man  !  What  has  he  done  to  her,  that  she  should  deal 
him  this  murderous  blow  ? — for  a  murderous  blow  it  is  to 
his  honor,  if  not  to  his  heart.  By  what  right  is  she  stab- 
bing him  in  the  dark?  Because  he  is  old,  sickly,  and 
peevish  ?  Was  not  he  all  three — did  not  she  know  him 
to  be  all  three — when  she  married  him  ?  How  little  he 


4:50  BELINDA. 


suspects  her  !  Exacting  and  undemonstrative  he  may  be, 
but  how  perfect  is  his  confidence  in  her  ! 

"You  look  feverish,"  he  says. 

There  is,  or  she  fancies  it,  a  tone  of  kindness,  almost 
compassion,  in  his  voice  ;  and  in  a  moment  she  has  fallen 
on  her  knees.  It  is  not  too  late,  even  yet !  She  will  tell 
him  all. 

"  What  the  deuce  are  you  about  ?  "  cries  he  acrimoni- 
ously. It  is  very  seldom  that  he  employs  even  so  small 
an  oath  as  the  one  recorded  ;  and  his  present  indulgence 
in  it  is  a  measure  of  his  irritation.  "  You  have  let  fall  a 
great  blot  of  ink  upon  Gregory  Nazianzen  !  " 

For  a  moment  she  still  kneels  there,  stunned ;  then, 
slowly  recovering  her  senses,  and  healed  completely  of 
her  impulse  toward  confession — 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  she  says,  stammering  ;  "  I — I 
had  dropped  something.  I — I — was  going  to  look  for  it !  " 

The  hours  pass  by.  They  seem  at  once  to  crawl  and 
to  rush.  With  no  one  but  her  husband  does  Belinda  ex- 
change a  word.  She  has  sufficiently  snubbed  into  silence 
and  rejected  with  eager  rudeness  the  efforts  of  the  civil 
visitors,  who,  attracted  by  her  beauty,  and  compassion- 
ating her  apparent  loneliness  (the  Professor  has  adhered 
to  his  regime  of  solitude  and  gruel),  have  tried  to  include 
her  in  their  talk.  She  has  harshly  rebuffed  a  little  child, 
who,  encouraged  by  former  notice,  has  run  up  to  make 
friends  with  her.  None  of  them  shall  be  able  to  say 
afterward  that  she  forced  her  company  upon  them — that 
company  which  they  will  then  look  upon  as  pollution. 

The  dinner-hour  is  near,  and  she  is  standing  outside 
the  hotel  door,  drawing  long,  gasping  breaths.  Is  it  a 
little  easier  to  live  out-of-doors  than  in  ?  It  has  been 
another  wet  day  ;  the  sun  has  been  neither  seen  nor 
heard  of  ;  but  now,  so  near  the  hour  of  his  daily  dying, 
he  asserts  himself.  From  beneath  a  lead-heavy  pile  of 


BELINDA.  451 


rain-clouds  he  is  thrusting  his  head  ;  but  his  radiance  is 
tempered  to  a  weird,  moony  splendor.  About  the  hills' 
necks  are  thrown  cobwebby  kerchiefs  of  vapor  ;  and  to 
all  these  he  lends  a  nameless  pale  opulence.  In  the  sky 
he  builds  up  an  aerial  city,  augustly  fair  as  that  one  seen 
in  trance  at  Patmos  ;  and  on  the  waters  his  sovran  feet 
have  trodden  a  straight  path  of  quivering  diamond. 
Across  this  royal  path  a  little  boat  has  the  presumption 
to  take  its  course  ;  and  at  once  is  harmonized  into  a 
solemn  unity  with  the  transfigured  water  and  the  moun- 
tain pinnacles — pinnacles  as  of  the  great  City  of  God. 

Belinda  looks  at  it  all  with  a  wild,  dry  eye,  and  a 
choked  throat.  Oh,  beautiful,  cruel,  terrible  world ! 
Would  not  it  be  easier  to  endure  if  it  were  ugly  and 
unsightly  ?  if  there  were  not  this  horrible  contrast  be- 
tween its  fair  shows  and  its  hideous  realities  ?  The  sight 
is  of  such  strange  loveliness  that  at  every  window  of  the 
hotel  heads  are  thrust  out  to  admire  it.  A  little  group 
of  people  have  followed  Mrs.  Forth's  example,  and  is- 
sued out  into  the  road.  The  lady  with  whom  she  had 
been  on  friendly  terms  at  Lowood  is  standing  near,  and 
addresses  her. 

"  Why  will  you  never  speak  to  us  now  ?  "  she  asks,  in 
a  wondering  voice  ;  "  I  am  afraid,"  laughing  a  little, 
"that  you  must  think  there  is  something  wrong  about 
us  ;  that  we  have  run  away,  perhaps,  and  are  not  married  ! 
Mamma  met  some  people  like  that  at  Spa  last  year  ;  it 
was  so  awkward,  for  she  had  made  quite  friends  with 
them ! " 

She  stops  abruptly,  for  the  woman  she  addresses  has 
turned  ghastly,  unaccountably  pale.  The  evening  is  one 
of  extraordinary  stillness.  On  the  satiny  water  the  heav- 
ens lie  exactly  copied,  cloud  for  cloud,  clear  sky-field  for 
clear  sky-field  !  That  strange  pallid  effulgence — lessened 
indeed,  fainting  away  by  slow  degrees  into  obscurity — is 


452  BELINDA. 


yet  still  there  ;  an  effulgence  not  of  the  gold  and  car- 
mines and  purples  that  one  usually  associates  with  sun- 
set ;  but  of  a  paler,  whiter,  lunar  quality. 

Again  those  sobs  rise  in  her  throat.  Oh,  lovely,  ironi- 
cal world  !  when  will  you  cease  jeering  us  in  our  misery  ? 
And  now  it  is  night.  She  has  gone  to  bid  her  husband 
good-night.  Often  on  previous  occasions,  she  has  omitted 
this  ceremony  as  nugatory  ;  but  now  a  morbid  impulse 
to  be  at  all  events  lacking  in  no  little  duties  of  courtesy 
toward  him,  possesses  her. 

She  finds  him  sitting  stooped  over  his  hearth,  with 
his  empty  gruel-basin  beside  him,  and  his  fleshless  hands 
absorbing  the  last  warmth  of  the  expiring  fire. 

"I  have  come  to  say  good-night." 

"  Have  you  ?     Good-night." 

Now  that  the  ceremony  is  concluded,  it  is  clear  that 
he  expects  her  to  retire  ;  but  still  she  lingers,  and  again 
that  longing  to  fall  on  her  knees  and  tell  him  all  sweeps 
over  her.  Poor  old  man  !  How  old  and  feeble  and 
lonely  he  looks  !  " 

"  You  are  not  ill  ?  "  she  says,  unsteadily. 

"  According  to  you,  I  am  never  ill,"  replies  he  dryly  ; 
"  I  enjoy  the  most  robust  health  ;  if  I  were  to  tell  you 
that  I  were  ill,  you  would  discredit  the  assertion  ! " 

"  Oh,  but  I  should  not,"  she  cries  remorsefully ;  "  I 
quite  believe  that  you  often,  often  suffer.  Is  there — is 
there — nothing  I  can  do  for  you  ?  " 

"  You  can  shut  the  door,"  replies  he,  with  a  snarl ;  "  a 
thing  that,  since  the  beginning  of  my  acquaintance  with 
you,  I  have  never  known  you  do  !  and  since  it  is  already 
past  my  usual  hour  for  retiring  to  bed,  I  will  ask  you  to 
shut  it  upon  the  outside  I " 


BELINDA.  453 


CHAPTER  VI. 

"  Look  up !     There  is  a  small  bright  cloud 

Alone  amid  the  skies ; 
So  high,  so  pure,  and  so  apart, 
A  woman's  honor  lies." 

now  the  night  has  to  be  faced.  With  what 
dread  has  she  watched  the  slow  declension  of  the  sum- 
mer evening  ;  but  no  dread  comes  up  to  the  reality,  to 
the  miserable  endless  hours  of  hand-to-hand  fighting  with 
the  terrible  battalions  of  thought  and  remorses,  that  come 
up,  ever  fresh  and  fresh,  against  her  ;  that,  while  all 
around  her  are  softly  sleeping,  take  her  by  the  throat 
in  the  blackness,  and  will  not  let  her  go  !  To  no  dream 
or  nightmare,  indeed,  does  she  give  the  opportunity  to 
torment  her,  for  she  makes  no  attempt  to  sleep.  Fully 
dressed,  widely,  burningly  awake,  she  sits  all  night  writ- 
ing, writing,  writing  endless  letters  of  farewell  to  him, 
who,  parted  from  her  only  by  a  flimsy  lath-and-plaster 
partition,  lies  tossing  in  the  light  and  uneasy  dozes  of  old 
age.  How  many  does  she  write  ?  They  must  be  a  score, 
at  least ;  prayers  for  forgiveness,  cries  of  remorse  ;  and 
no  sooner  are  they  written  than  she  tears  them  all. 
Prayers  for  forgiveness  of  a  wrong  that  is  unforgivable  ! 
Cries  of  remorse  for  a  sin  that  her  action  shows  she  has 
not  really  repented  of  !  Why  insult  him  by  such  ?  The 
dawn  has  come  by  the  time  that  she  has  at  length  written 
the  three  lines  which,  without  reading  over — if  she  read 
them  over,  she  knows  that  she  would  tear  them  too — she 
feverishly  folds  and  places  in  an  envelope.  In  them 
there  is  neither  petition  nor  repentance  : 

"  I  am  going  to  leave  you  for  always.  You  can  not 
think  that  I  have  been  a  worse  wife  to  you  than  I  think 
myself. 

"  BELINDA." 


454  BELINDA. 


To  have  toiled  all  night  for  such  an  outcome  !  She 
walks  to  the  window  feeling  stiff  and  chilled.  The  morn- 
ing is  bringing  all  night's  secrets  to  light.  Again  the 
wooded  hill  rises  a  hand-breadth  off  ;  the  little  patch  of 
sky  that  it  allows  her  to  see  is  putting  on  day's  blue  liv- 
ery. Well,  then,  it  has  come  !  There  is  no  going  back 
now  !  no  more  shilly-shallying  !  There  is  nothing  for  it 
but  to  make  the  best  of  it !  She  has  turned  from  the 
window,  and  accidentally  faced  herself  in  the  glass. 
What  a  spectacle  !  What  heavy  smouches  under  the 
eyes  !  What  baked  white  lips  !  But  in  her  face,  is 
there  something  else,  too  ?  something  new  and  unquali- 
fiable  ?  Is  it  already  beginning  to  assume  that  pitiful, 
brazen  look,  that  women  such  as  she  wear  ?  Well,  if  it 
is,  what  wonder  ?  If  it  is,  there  is  no  help  for  it ! 

The  time  is  so  short — so  short  now  !  Surely  for  that 
short  time  she  can  manage  to  keep  thought  at  bay  ?  She 
moves  noiselessly  about,  busying  herself  with  this  and 
that.  She  takes  off  her  wedding-ring,  and  making  it  and 
the  few  paltry  trinkets  that  her  husband  has  ever  given 
her  into  a  small  packet,  directs  and  places  them  beside 
the  letter  ;  then  she  tries  to  ruffle  her  bed,  and  give  it  a 
lately  occupied  air  :  no  easy  task,  for  a  bed  that  has  not 
been  slept  in  will  not  look  like  one  that  has.  Then  she 
undresses  ;  and  by-and-by,  when  her  hot  water  is  brought, 
makes  her  toilet  afresh,  having  first  placed  letter  and  par- 
cel in  a  conspicuous  situation  upon  the  chest  of  drawers 
which  serves  as  dressing-table,  and  goes  down-stairs. 

How  near  the  time  is  now  !  She  refers,  for  the  hun- 
dredth time,  to  the  paper  of  directions  left  with  her  by 
Rivers.  At  such  an  hour  she  is  to  set  off.  It  is  within 
five  minutes  of  that  hour.  She  has  ordered  overnight  a 
carriage  to  convey  her.  It  is  true  that  an  omnibus  plies 
between  hotel  and  station,  but  from  its  publicity  she 
shrinks  with  unconquerable  aversion.  It  will  be  full  of 


BELINDA.  455 


people.  They  will  be  talking  and  laughing.  They  will 
talk  to  her  ;  perhaps — quite  as  likely  as  not — they  will 
ask  her  where  she  is  going  ! 

So  she  has  ordered  an  open  fly  for  herself.  It  shall 
be  no  expense  to  Professor  Forth.  She  can  easily  re- 
turn him  by  post  the  money  for  it.  Yes  ;  but  whose 
money  ?  A  scorching  blush  burns  cheek  and  brow,  and 
she  covers  her  miserable  face  with  her  hands. 

It  is  three  minutes  past  the  appointed  hour,  and  the 
carriage  is  not  yet  here.  Perhaps  there  has  been  some 
mistake  !  Perhaps  it  was  never  ordered  !  But  no  sooner 
has  this  sickly  hope — that  is  scarcely  a  hope  either — flared 
up  in  her  mind,  than  it  is  extinguished  again.  For  an 
open  fly  comes  rolling  briskly  up  to  the  door.  Perhaps 
it  may  not  be  hers.  Other  people  order  flys  too.  Per- 
haps it  may  be  for  some  one  else.  But  this  delusion  also 
dies. 

"The  carriage  is  ready,  ma'am,"  says  a  waiter,  ap- 
proaching her. 

"Are  you  sure  that  it  is  mine?"  she  asks  huskily. 
"  Are  you  sure  that  it  is  not  meant  for  some  one  else — 
that  there  is  no  mistake  ?  " 

"  No  mistake  at  all,  ma'am  !  " 

There  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  get  in.  As  she  takes 
her  seat — 

"  Will  you  dine  at  the  tdble-d'hote  to-day,  ma'am  ?  " 
asks  the  waiter  innocently. 

In  an  instant  all  the  truant  blood  has  poured  back 
into  her  snow-white  face.  Does  he  suspect  her  ?  Has  he 
asked  her  on  purpose  ? 

"No!"  she  answers  almost  inaudibly — "no,  not  to- 
day." 

And  now  she  is  off  !  The  die  is  cast !  Nothing  has 
happened  to  prevent  her.  To  the  last  moment  she  has 
dimly  believed  that  something  would  happen  to  prevent 


456  BELINDA. 


her.  But  no  !  nothing  has  !  No  fire  has  fallen  from 
heaven  to  consume  her  !  No  accident  has  occurred  to 
hinder  her  !  By  what  small  accidents — happening  at  the 
last  moment — have  other  people  been  saved  !  No  acci- 
dent comes  to  save  her  I  Neither  God  nor  man  cares 
what  becomes  of  her! 

The  morning  is  lovely,  with  morning's  fresh  look  of 
newness,  as  if  the  ancient  hills  had  but  just  been  turned 
out  of  their  Maker's  workshop.  Lapis-blue  is  the  lake, 
as  a  summer  lake  should  be  ;  and  with  its  little  islands 
laughing  in  summer  forest-green  upon  its  radiant  lap. 
Over  one  mountain-shoulder,  indeed,  a  few  slight  cloud- 
shadows,  thrown  light  as  gauzy  scarfs,  still  lie.  But  on 
his  brothers'  granite  knees  there  is  strong  resolute  sun- 
shine, and  in  their  ravines  shadows  cut  hard  and  black. 

Oh,  cruel  world !  Again  you  are  jeering  her  with 
your  beauty !  Her  eyes  roll  wildly  round,  and  thought 
after  thought  courses  with  mad  rapidity  through  her  head. 
Little  irrelevant  incidents  out  of  far-away  childhood, 
fragments  of  forgotten  books,  texts  of  Scripture.  "I 
will  look  unto  the  hills  from  whence  cometh  my  help  !  " 
That  is  what  teases  her  most.  And  yet  what  applicabil- 
ity is  there  in  it  to  her  ?  Does  any  help  come  from  the 
hills  to  her?  Beneath  the  trees  that  lip  the  lake,  and 
through  whose  leafage  come  ever  glimpses  of  its  dazzling 
gayety,  the  sweet  road  winds.  Along  it  some  of  the  in- 
mates of  the  hotel  are  leisurely  walking,  and,  as  she 
passes,  look  up  to  nod  and  smile  at  her. 

Would  they  nod  and  smile  at  her  did  they  know 
whither  and  on  what  errand  she  is  bent  ?  What  right 
has  she  to  leave  them  under  such  a  delusion  ?  She  must 
undeceive  them.  So  distraught  is  her  brain  that  she  leans 
out  of  the  carriage  to  accomplish  this  lunatic  purpose, 
but  they  are  already  left  behind.  How  fast  the  driver 
drives  ! 


BELINDA.  457 


Why  does  he  drive  so  fast  ?  She  calls  out  to  him  to 
go  slower  ;  and  then,  with  a  new  and  contradictory  long- 
ing that  it  should  be  over,  should  be  irrevocable,  bids 
him  drive  faster  again.  And  still,  numberless  as  sand- 
grains,  quicker  than  lightning,  the  thoughts  rush  through 
her  head.  It  is  a  sentence  out  of  "  Sartor  Kesartus  "  now 
that  is  beating  and  hammering  in  her  brain  ;  a  "  Sartor 
Resartus"  casually  left  behind  by  some  stray  guest  at 
the  hotel,  and  as  casually  opened  by  her  yesterday. 
"  Love  not  Pleasure  ;  Love  God  :  This  is  the  Everlasting 
Yea  ! "  Why  should  it  buzz  in  her  ears  ?  What  has  it 
to  say  to  her?  How  short  the  drive  is  !  The  roofs  of 
Keswick  are  already  in  sight.  That  was  a  short  drive, 
too — the  drive  to  church  on  her  marriage  morning.  With 
what  dreadful  vividness  does  it  now  return  in  each  de- 
tail of  its  pinched  and  icy  misery  upon  her  memory  ;  she 
sitting  there  in  dead,  despairing  obstinacy,  and  Sarah  sob- 
bing beside  her,  telling  her  that  it  was  not  too  late  ! 
Sarah  was  right.  It  was  not  too  late  then.  If  Sarah 
were  here  now,  would  she  still  tell  her  that  it  is  not  too 
late  ?  Oh,  why  is  not  she  here,  then  ?  At  every  step  of 
the  road  her  agony  heightens,  and  a  cold  sweat  stands  on 
her  forehead.  It  is  not  too  late !  It  is  not  too  late  I 
This  is  written  in  letters  of  fire  all  over  the  mountains  ; 
all  over  the  lapis  lake  and  sapphire  sky.  It  is  not  too 
late  I  How  plainly  she  can  read  the  words  !  They  are 
taking  the  character  of  a  command  !  It  is  not  too  late ! 
Dare  she  disobey  such  a  mandate  ? 

"  Stop ! "  she  cries,  standing  up  suddenly,  like  one 
possessed.  But  her  emotion  is  so  overpowering,  and  her 
throat  so  dry,  that  no  sound  issues  from  it.  The  horse 
still  trots  rapidly  on.  "Stop!"  she  repeats,  but  once 
again  her  disobedient  organs  play  her  false,  and  the  horse 
trots  on.  "  STOP  1 "  she  cries  frantically,  a  third  time  ; 
and  now,  at  last,  the  coachman  hears,  and  pulls  up. 
20 


458  BELINDA. 


"  Go  back  ! "  she  says  hoarsely,  and  almost  unintelligibly  ; 
"  go  back  to  the  hotel ! "  then,  becoming  aware,  though 
sight  is  dim  and  head  giddy,  of  the  unbounded  astonish- 
ment depicted  on  his  face — "  I — I — have  forgotten  some- 
thing ! " 

"  We  shall  lose  the  train,  ma'am,"  he  answers,  civilly 
demurring  ;  "  we  have  not  too  much  time  as  it  is." 

"  Go  back  ! "  she  repeats,  huskily  ;  and  then,  indeed, 
wondering,  he  obeys. 

She  sinks  back,  and  covers  her  face  with  her  hands. 
What  has  she  done  ?  She  forbids  herself  to  ask  or  think. 
But  has  she  done  it  in  vain  ?  If,  during  her  absence,  her 
letter  has  been  discovered,  she  will  have  returned  in  vain. 
Even  if  it  has  not  been  already  discovered,  every  minute 
that  passes  lessens  its  chance  of  escape.  At  this  very 
moment  it  may  be  being  found,  and  she  will  have  turned 
back  in  vain. 

"  How  slow  you  drive  !  "  she  cries  harshly  ;  "  drive 
quicker  !  quicker  !  " 

How  could  she  ever  have  thought  the  distance  short  ? 
It  is  immeasurably,  unbelievably  long  !  The  hotel  is  in 
sight !  A  few  people  are  standing  about  the  door.  Have 
they  heard?  Are  they  talking  about  it?  The  fly  has 
stopped.  Is  she  in  time  ?  It  seems  as  if  there  were  an 
ominous  silence  about  the  idlers  hanging  round.  Have 
they  heard  ?  She  dare  not  look  the  waiter,  who  comes 
to  help  her  out,  in  the  face.  She  staggers  past  him  into 
the  hall ;  then,  by  a  tremendous  effort,  steadying  herself, 
she  rushes  up-stairs.  Is  she  in  time  ?  Flight  after  flight 
she  mounts,  with  that  question  surging  in  her  ears.  She 
has  reached  her  room — has  burst  into  it.  Is  she  in  time  ? 
One  glance  gives  her  the  answer.  Yes,  she  is  !  Undis- 
turbed, exactly  as  she  had  left  them  upon  the  top  of  the 
chest  of  drawers,  lie  letter  and  packet.  She  is  in  time  ! 
Oh,  the  relief  of  that  thought !  And  yet,  so  compli- 


BELINDA.  459 


catedly  contradictory  are  we,  that,  at  the  sight  so  madly 
desired,  a  distinct  pang  of  disappointment  crosses  her 
heart.  Had  the  letter  been  discovered,  there  would  have 
been  the  one  and  only  refuge  left  her,  and  no  one  could 
then  have  blamed  her  for  availing  herself  of  it.  She 
starts,  shuddering  at  herself.  Is  she  already  repenting 
of  her  repentance  ?  What  security  has  she  that  she  may 
not  again  go  back  from  it  ?  Within  her  there  is  none  ; 
if  there  is  a  security  for  her,  it  must  be  one  outside  her. 
She  has  taken  the  letter  into  her  hand,  and  stands  for 
a  few  moments  motionless  ;  a  desperate  determination 
gaining  strength  in  her  heart,  and  painting  itself  on  her 
haggard  yet  resolute  face.  Since  the  letter  has  not  yet 
been  delivered  to  him,  she  herself  will  deliver  it.  She 
will  tell  him  under  what  circumstances  it  was  written. 
This  shall  be  her  expiation. 

Without  giving  herself  time  for  hesitation,  she  moves 
quickly  out  of  the  room,  and  knocks  at  her  husband's  door. 
There  is  no  answer,  and  she  knocks  again.  Still  no  reply. 
Perhaps,  though  it  is  not  likely,  he  may  be  out.  So  she 
enters.  ISTo,  he  is  in  his  usual  seat,  by  his  improvised 
writing-table.  He  could  not  have  heard.  His  attitude 
is  not  quite  his  usual  one,  for  he  is  apparently  unoccupied, 
leaning  back  in  his  chair,  and  with  his  head  bent  a  little 
forward  on  his  chest.  He  must  be  thinking,  and  will 
probably  chide  her  for  disturbing  him.  Well,  it  can  not 
be  helped.  Heaven  knows  he  has  cause  enough  to  chide 
her! 

"  Can  I  speak  to  you  ?  " 

Her  voice  sounds  strangely  resonant  in  this  silent 
room.  There  is  no  answer,  nor  does  her  husband  show, 
by  any  movement  or  slightest  change  of  position,  that  he 
is  aware  of  her  vicinity.  It  is  very  odd.  She  has  spoken 
loudly  and  distinctly,  and  he  is  not  deaf.  He  must  be 
asleep  ;  and  yet,  he  is  not  apt  to  fall  asleep  in  the  morn- 


460  BELINDA. 


ing  !  A  chill  terror  is  creeping  over  her,  but  she  tries  to 
shake  it  off.  Her  nerves  are  unstrung.  Why  should 
not  he  be  asleep  ?  How  apt  old  people  are  to  slide  into 
a  doze  ! 

Conquering  the  nameless,  senseless  dread  of  approach- 
ing him  that  has  come  over  her,  she  walks  firmly  up  to 
him,  and,  laying  her  hand  on  his  arm,  stoops  and  looks 
into  his  face.  The  next  instant  a  sharp  shriek  rings 
through  the  hotel,  and  when  frightened  visitors  and 
chambermaids,  hurrying  from  all  quarters,  reach  the 
room,  they  find  Mrs.  Forth  lying  stretched  on  the  floor 
beside  her  husband,  as  inanimate  as  he.  Only  that  in 
time  they  bring  her  round  again.  As  for  him,  he  has  for- 
ever vindicated  his  character  from  the  imputation  of 
being  a  malade  imaginaire,  and  the  professorship  of 
Etruscan  in  the  University  of  Oxbridge  is  vacant ! 


THE      END. 


Rhoda  Broughton's  Novels. 


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9.  Lionel  Lincoln.  23.  Heidenmauer. 

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[SEE  NEXT  PAGEj 


COOPER'S  NOVELS. — (Continued.) 


OCTAVO  EDITION. 

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3.  The  Pathfinder.  8.  The  Water- Witch. 

4.  The  Pioneers.  9.  Wing-and-Wing. 

B.  The  Prairie.  1O.  The  Two  Admirals.    " 

1 1 .  The  Spy. 

LEATHER-STOCKING-  TALES. 

{1.  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans. 
2.  The  Deerslayer. 
3.  The  Pathfinder. 
4.  The  Pioneers. 
5.  The  Prairie. 

40  Illustrations,  by  DAELEY.  8vo.  Cloth,  $4.00;  sheep,  $5.00; 
half  calf,  $6.50. 

CHEAP  EDITION.  With  Illustrations  by  DABLEY.  8vo.  Cloth, 
with  gilt  side  and  back,  $2.00. 

SEA  TALES. 

f    1.  The  Pilot. 
\    2.  The  Red  Rover. 

Five  volumes  in  one,  viz. :  •<    3.  The  Water- Witch. 
j    4.  Wing-and-Wing. 
v  &.  The  Two  Admirals. 

Uniform  with  the  above.  40  Illustrations,  by  DAELEY.  8vo. 
Cloth,  $4.00;  sheep,  $5.00;  half  calf,  $6.50. 

CHEAP  EDITION.  With  Illustrations  by  DAELEY.  8vo.  Cloth, 
with  gilt  side  and  back,  $2.00. 

Leather-Stocking  Tales.   5  volumes,  I2mo.  Cloth,  $5.00; 

half  calf,  $15.00. 
Sea  Tales.     5  volumes,  12mo.    Cloth,  $5.00 ;  half  calf,  $15.00. 


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